Is there about to be a US-Iran deal ending the war – for real? And what would be the myriad implications? We explore.
As of Saturday night, the strange US–Iran dance appears to be approaching some kind of climax — though nobody can yet agree on whether a real agreement exists, what it contains, or who exactly is conceding what to whom. That said, unless you love the Iranian regime, it looks pretty bad.
Over the last several days, the Trump administration has repeatedly signaled that a deal ending the war with Iran is close, with Trump himself suggesting that an agreement could be signed as early as Sunday. Yet the White House has also been eager to distance itself from details emerging from Tehran. Iranian-linked media leaked terms portraying the agreement as highly favorable to Iran — including sanctions relief, access to frozen assets of at least $24 billion, and a winding down of hostilities without immediate dismantlement of the Iranian nuclear program. Trump insisting the leaked terms were “untrue” and that the whole thing was “dishonorable,” even while continuing to insist that a deal itself was imminent.
Who would you believe? Trump or the Iranian regime? Not an appetizing choice. But what is clear is that the US seems eager to secure an agreement but uncomfortable with the appearance of what’s currently on the table. So Trump is trying once more to will into being an agreement that looks better. We will only be able to judge once we really know – but as of this writing, what this boils down to is that Trump will try to pretend that the agreement includes Iran giving up its nuclear program even though Iran has merely agreed to discuss it.
As I told the US channel NewsNation today, it is reminiscent of last fall’s cease-fire plan for Gaza. That Gordian knot could only be untied by Hamas agreeing to disarm, so Trump declared that they had, and put this in his 20-point plan. But Hamas in fact neither agreed to nor has implemented any such thing. Still, the subterfuge got Israel to end a war where it was getting nowhere but the Hague – so in a way it had utility.
Basically, this war too has to end because the US went into it without an answer to Iran blocking the Strait of Hormuz (which we explored last week). This has the making of a disgrace – but on the other hand even a bad deal would probably fly with US voters who do not love this war, or high oil prices. I would have preferred an open-ended air, sea and land blockade of Iran, but this would have involved more months of economic pain, and the world was just not ready for it. Perhaps Trump, who goes to the G-7 in Paris next week, actually took that into account.
Multiple reports now indicate that Trump is expected to meet with leaders from Qatar, the UAE, Egypt, and other Arab states on the sidelines of the summit, while Netanyahu is not expected. Another interesting sign of the times: all may not be well with this unsightly bromance.
I also spoke today to the Indian channel NewsX, touching not only on the confusion surrounding the prospective deal but also on several deeper structural issues that may ultimately prove far more important than the deal itself:
- The growing ability of relatively weak states to impose enormous economic and geopolitical costs on much stronger powers through asymmetric disruption rather than conventional military strength. The widening imbalance between the cheapness of disruption and the extreme expense of defense create a world in which maintaining order becomes vastly more difficult than undermining it.
- This leads to emerging realization that overwhelming military and intelligence superiority does not necessarily guarantee strategic control in a world where adversaries are willing to absorb immense suffering, economic collapse, and international isolation over very long periods of time. Specifically, this has been a huge blow to US prestige stemming from the idea that America rules the waves.
- Relatedly, we see accelerating democratization of dangerous technologies — from drones and cyber capabilities to biological and chemical threats — which are no longer confined to major powers and are becoming increasingly accessible to smaller actors.
- Lastly, the increasing fragility of the global economic system, particularly the vulnerability of maritime choke points, trade routes, digital infrastructure, and interconnected supply chains to low-cost forms of sabotage and coercion.
Read the transcript here:
