The Memo: Clouds darken over Trump’s Iran deal

A storm is growing over President Trump’s deal to end the war with Iran.

The memorandum of understanding agreed on between the two sides is expected to be formally signed in Switzerland on Friday. It has already been signed electronically by senior figures in Tehran and Washington, including Trump.

But no official text has been made public. The vacuum has been filled by fear, speculation and, increasingly, leaks of the text that may or may not be accurate.

Trump on Tuesday promised he would go through the agreement “word by word” in public — but not immediately, only in “the next couple of days.”

The bottom line is that Republican lawmakers, especially those of a more hawkish worldview, are deeply uneasy, some prominent conservative commentators are incandescent and people around Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are making it known that requests to see the deal have been rebuffed, which they cast as extraordinary and shabby treatment of an ally.

Democrats and liberals are mostly content to let the disarray on the right play out. Their stance, in essence, is that Trump plunged into a reckless and unnecessary war from which he is now willing to pay almost any price to escape.

None of this means that the deal will collapse or that Trump will have a fundamental rethink. To the contrary, the president may hold fast to the position that his interests are best served by ending the war, getting oil flowing through the Strait of Hormuz, and easing the inflationary pressures that have caused gas prices to spike at home.

If Trump’s view is that American voters looking toward the midterms care more about prices at the pump than the finer points of Iranian uranium enrichment, he is likely right. But that doesn’t necessarily mean those same voters will give him a pass for starting the war in the first place.

Notably, Trump does not seem particularly interested in monopolizing the spotlight as the peace ceremony nears.

It is Vice President Vance who has been to the fore in defending the deal — somewhat ironically, since he is widely reported to have been among the most skeptical administration voices about the war from the outset. Trump, who is attending the Group of Seven (G7) conference in France, somewhat casually expressed the hope on Tuesday that the war would soon be “in the rearview mirror.”

It’s far from clear that more neoconservative voices on the right are going to go along with that idea.

Numerous aspects of the deal are causing deep angst in those circles.

For a start, the memorandum of understanding appears to kick the central issue of Iran’s nuclear enrichment program down the road, to be decided in a new batch of talks that will take place during the 60-day ceasefire extension.

Trump is seeking to claim victory because of an apparent Iranian promise not to develop or acquire a nuclear device. “Iran has agreed to never have a Nuclear Weapon!” he enthused in a Monday social media post.

But Iran has in the past repeatedly said it is not seeking such a weapon. The issue has always been whether the claim can be believed.

Trump has been lambasting the 2015 agreement that he calls “the Obama deal” — officially the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action — repeatedly. But that deal included the clear commitment that “Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons.” It also provided for the International Atomic Energy Agency to “monitor and verify” Iranian compliance.

The hawks have other concerns too. Unverified versions of the agreement include nothing specific about barring Iran from supporting proxy groups in the region, such as Hamas and Hezbollah — which had ostensibly been a key U.S. and Israeli war aim.

Reports suggest that sweeping sanctions relief for Iran is imminent. And there is the prospect of a $300 billion fund, set up by the U.S.’s “regional partners,” to help Iran rebuild.

Crucially, at least one unofficial version of the memorandum in circulation stipulates that there must be an end to fighting on all fronts, including Lebanon. Israel has invaded southern Lebanon amid its battles with Hezbollah, and Netanyahu is loath to call off his offensive.

In sum, it has left Republican senators struggling to contain their discontent.

As The Hill’s Alexander Bolton has reported, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has said of the agreement, “I want to see it myself”; Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) told reporters he didn’t “know enough about it to say” whether it was a good deal or not; and Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) offered only a terse, “I’m withholding comment.”

Trump, asked Tuesday by a reporter at the G7 about Graham’s apparent skepticism, responded: “I’ll have to talk to Lindsey. He’ll be in big trouble.”

Conservative commentators have shown far less reticence in voicing their criticisms of the reported deal.

“If this is accurate it’s a complete disaster,” The Washington Post columnist and American Enterprise Institute fellow Marc Thiessen wrote in response to one purported version of the agreement posted online.

National Review editor Philip Klein pushed back on a social media message from the White House’s “Rapid Response” account, which quoted Vance complaining about inaccurate reporting of the deal.

“Then release the text! This game is embarrassing,” Klein wrote.

John Podhoretz, the editor of Commentary magazine, lamented on a podcast, “There is no person on Earth who is going to say that America didn’t lose this war! There is nobody!”

For the moment, Trump seems largely impervious to such criticisms. But whether he will hold firm until Friday — and beyond — could be a different matter.

The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage.