Talks hang on the same issues, nuclear stockpiles, sanctions, and mistrust.
Four Things
The Wal Street Journal reports Iran Talks Bog Down Over Nuclear Program and Sanctions Relief. That’s only two. The biggest issues are mistrust and warmonger meddling.
Progress toward a deal to end the war with Iran slowed Monday as the two sides dug in over references to the country’s nuclear program and financial relief for Tehran, mediators said.
The slowdown followed a weekend that began with President Trump and other administration officials saying a deal was close and ended with Trump saying he wouldn’t rush to conclude an agreement that wasn’t right.
After the initial reports of the deal surfaced, Trump came under criticism from more hawkish members of his party who worried an agreement could open the Strait of Hormuz and ease the financial pressure on Iran’s regime but leave its nuclear program intact.
“The deal with Iran will either be a great and meaningful one, or there will be no deal,” Trump said early Monday on social media, blasting his Republican and Democratic critics as knowing nothing about the deal under negotiation.
The two sides are working toward a memorandum of understanding that would end the fighting and lift constraints on shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz over 30 days while setting the stage for talks about Iran’s nuclear program in a second phase. Relief from sanctions would depend on progress, a senior U.S. administration official said Sunday.
The U.S. is seeking clearer commitments from Iran about its nuclear program up front, while Iranian negotiators are pressing for details from the U.S. about relief from sanctions and asset freezes, mediators said.
Gulf countries also broadly support the effort, though they worry the U.S. could disengage before security concerns raised by Iran’s bombardment of the region during the war are addressed.
Israel is also concerned the U.S. could do a deal that would ease the economic and military pressure on Tehran and tie its hands, particularly in its fight against the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon.
Israel is pressing its American contacts and publicly via the media for a tougher deal with more commitments from Iran, a person familiar with the matter said.
War Hawk Meddling
Benjamin Netanyahu does not want a deal.
Neither does Senator Lindsey Graham, unless they are extremely one-sided.
But let’s return to mistrust.
No Iranian Commitments
Cancelled Talks
BREAKING: Iran’s Foreign Ministry now officially confirms that no Iranian nuclear commitments and uranium handover exist or will exist in any draft agreement with the US, calling all reports that claim otherwise a “pure lie,” making further talks pointless due to the US insistence on this issue.
Based on that issue, the statement declares “we are not signing any agreement with the US” and “no one can claim we are close to reaching an agreement.” Iran separately stated to Tasnim they are now on the verge of “cancelling” the negotiations completely.
Institutionalized Vacillation
“US policymaking suffers from institutionalized vacillation. Positions flip within hours. You get contradictory viewpoints back-to-back. That kills any negotiation.”
Lindsey Graham and Netanyahu do not want a deal. Graham convinced Trump to pressure all of the countries to sign the Abrams Accord.
Iran Seeks Guarantees from China
Iran Beating Trump on Art of the Deal
“The worst thing you can possibly do in a deal is seem desperate to make it. That makes the other guy smell blood, and then you’re dead. The best thing you can do is deal from strength, and leverage is the biggest strength you can have.”
That was the principle Donald Trump (or his ghostwriter) set out in The Art of the Deal, published in 1987. Perhaps Trump should have re-read his own book before posting on April 5: “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell.”
The grim reality is that, in the talks to end the war, it is Tehran that has had the leverage. Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz put intense pressure on the global economy. As petrol prices have risen in America, so Trump’s opinion poll ratings have plummeted. The result is that, at the time of writing, the US seemed poised to agree to a deal that — over the long term — threatens to leave Iran in a stronger position than before this war began.
Trump has insisted that he is in no hurry and would never accept a bad agreement. But the reaction of hawkish Republicans to the emerging deal was telling. Senator Ted Cruz suggested that it could be a “disastrous mistake” because it would leave Iran “able to enrich uranium and develop nuclear weapons, and having effective control over the Strait of Hormuz”. Senator Roger Wicker, head of the Senate armed services committee, warned that the emerging deal “would not be worth the paper it is written on”.
Eli Groner, a former director-general of Netanyahu’s office, argues that the knowledge that Iran can now close the Strait of Hormuz at any point in the future “is a victory far deeper and more strategic than any point-scoring military achievement”. His one-word summary was: “Disaster.”
As Dan Shapiro, a former US ambassador to Israel, observed on X: “Iran has gained significant leverage for the future by demonstrating it can control the strait, by attacking its neighbours and US bases in the region and causing significant damage, and by taking the United States’ and Israel’s best punch and surviving.”
Shapiro believes that, nonetheless, Trump is so boxed in that accepting a bad deal that opens the strait would be a better option than continuing the war.
Trump’s occasional threats to unleash “Hell” on the Iranian regime lacked credibility — because of his obvious reluctance to get involved in a ground war and because of the danger of Iranian retaliation against the Gulf states and their energy infrastructure.
In the jargon of military analysts the vulnerability of the Gulf gave Iran “escalation dominance”. The US president — who compares himself obsessively with former president Barack Obama — liked to deride the nuclear deal that the Obama administration reached with Iran in 2015. Trump has called it “one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into” and claimed: “Never, ever, ever in my life have I seen any transaction so incompetently negotiated as our deal with Iran.”
But Trump himself is now negotiating an agreement that looks, in many respects, worse than the one Obama negotiated — partly because of the lurking knowledge that Iran can still close the Strait of Hormuz, any time it wants. That is some achievement from the master of the art of the deal.
Dan Shapiro – Former US Ambassador to Israel
Full Shapiro Comments
With all due caveats about a deal that has not been announced yet, some thoughts:
The US-Iran deal being described in the news is a weak deal, and the net result of this war is significant damage to US strategic interests. That said, since the war was a mistake from the beginning, we can at least be thankful it appears President Trump is moving, belatedly, to end it.
This war was ill-conceived in every respect. There were no clear strategic objectives, and no way to achieve most of the objectives mentioned at an acceptable cost.
After the Strait of Hormuz was closed, and the global economic crisis started to spread, reopening it became the most important objective. That meant Iran had far greater leverage than we did.
So President Trump faced only terrible options, of his own making. The deal being reported is among the less terrible options he could have chosen. At least he is not choosing to escalate the war, which would cause an even greater global economic crisis.
The least terrible deal would have been a verified opening of the Strait — and nothing else. Keep full sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, maintain watchfulness and deterrence established in the 12-Day War last June, and try to negotiate a significant rollback of the program and intrusive inspections.
This deal is weaker than that. It reportedly provides $25 billion in unfrozen assets without receiving any concessions on the nuclear program. That money will give the regime a lifeline and help it begin restoring funding to its proxies. And there are no guarantees that Iran will make meaningful concessions on enrichment or HEU once those talks do start.
Those talks, which will likely drag on, may well take place without a credible US military threat backing them up, as the United States labors to recover from all it expended and lost in this campaign and shore up other strategic priorities (IndoPacific) that have been set back, and as US midterm elections approach.
Meanwhile, the deal says nothing about Iran’s ballistic missile program or its support for proxies. Yes, US and Israeli strikes degraded, but did not eliminate, many Iranian attack capabilities. But overall, Iran has gained significant leverage for the future by demonstrating it can control the strait, by attacking its neighbors and US bases in the region and causing significant damage, and by taking the United States’ and Israel’s best punch and surviving with enough ability to project aggression in tact.
It’s a bleak day for US strategic interests. But it’s better than continuing the war and making it even worse.
Once the dust clears, one thing must not be forgotten. The Iranian people continue to live under a vicious regime. Trump has barely spoken of them in weeks. They deserve help, support, and appropriate non-military external pressures on the regime to give THEM the best chance to change it.
The Administration, which put so much faith in military power to do what it could not, should invest in Iran experts, communicators, Persian language broadcasting, transition planning, diplomacy, and more aimed at supporting the Iranian people in their quest for freedom from tyranny.
That was true in January when the Iranian people were demonstrating for their freedom. And it is still true today, despite this stupid war.
Reflections on the Art of the Deal
Vitaliy Katsenelson
Trump is objectively the worst negotiator I’ve ever seen. Preannounces deals before they’re signed, locks himself into weakness, the other side smells desperation and reneges. Count the Russia/Ukraine “deals” he’s announced. Count how many closed.
A good chunk of the country bought the “Art of the Deal” myth. Turns out he’s teaching the opposite: a masterclass in what not to do. There is no art. Just a guy with the temperament and IQ of a chipmunk negotiating for 330 million people.
Was a Deal Close?
I think so. And it was total capitulation, too.
But it appears Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, and media reports of a weak deal made Trump back off. So Trump says nobody knows what was in the deal. Sorry, details were leaked everywhere.
That prompted a backlash from Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz.
Notably, the energy markets concurred with the idea a deal is close, and still do. Oil is down again today. This is different from previous announcements where oil soared back up.
No Winning Options
As I have commented for months, Trump has no winning options. Iran can wait Trump out.
In the initial week of the war, I made an assessment that Iran’s overriding goal was to inflict as much pain on Trump and the US as it could.
That the US could inflict more military pain on Iran was never in doubt. But winning (if it is possible at all) would still require boots on the ground.
Iran knows Trump does not have that resolve.
Notably, the longer this has gone on, the more demands Iran has made. Trump had a deal on the table from Iran that did involve giving up uranium. Trump turned that down.
He demanded surrender.
Now it’s Trump who is fittingly on the verge of surrender.
For discussion, please consider Trump Announces an Iran Deal that Appears to Be a Complete Capitulation
Here we go again, another deal announcement and another denial by Iran. But …
My follow-up was Trump Waves the White Flag of Surrender to Iran. What Can Go Wrong?
The leaked terms of the deal amount to a Trump surrender. Netanyahu is unhappy.
Today, we see more warmonger interference by Senators Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, and Senator Roger Wicker.
Amusingly, Wicker warned that the emerging deal “would not be worth the paper it is written on”.
That is exactly how Iran feels about any deal with the world’s biggest liar, Trump. Iran would be stupid to give up its enriched uranium, so it won’t.
Article posted with permission from Mish Shedlock
