‘Aspirational framework’: Trump’s exit strategy from Iran war pleases almost no one

PHILADELPHIA - The newly-minted Iran deal has not kicked off with the best of omens.

A day after the June 17 signing, Vice President J D Vance had to cancel his planned departure to Geneva where he had expected to get into the nitty gritties about nuclear concessions and sanctions relief with the Iranians.

“The logistics of these negotiations have never been simple or predictable,” the White House spokesperson said in a short explanatory statement.

It was hardly an encouraging start for the administration which is trying its best to drum up support for the deal but encountering mostly skepticism, scorn and disappointment at every quarter, including among national security hawks within President Trump’s own party.

A central question is whether Washington can realistically hope for behavioural change in Iran if it could not achieve regime change.

Vance, who has emerged as the main cheerleader for the deal, said Iran would only reap financial benefits if its relationship with the world were transformed.

“They don’t get anything unless they change their behaviour,” he said while briefing the press on June 18.

Vance and Iran’s Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf digitally inked the memorandum of understanding (MoU) before Trump physically signed during the G7 meeting in Versailles.

As part of the 14-point agreement, the US has lifted its naval blockade of Iranian ports. And Tehran is allowing commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, which it had shut down after the war started on Feb 28.

Even as there is relief across the world at the cessation of military operations which will allow tankers to resume supplying a fifth of the world’s oil and lower prices, few analysts are optimistic that things will be back to normal.

“It’s an interim agreement with absolutely no certainty that it can reach the next phase,” said Professor Joseph Liow, chairman of the Middle East Institute at the National University of Singapore.

Still, any deal that frees up the shipping bottleneck in the Strait will be met with a sigh of relief, he added.

“But the longer term question would be the terms of transit through Hormuz. Shipping may be freed up in the immediate term, but beyond that I would be surprised if Iran allows it to go back to normal, i.e. pre-war.”

The agreement guarantees toll-free passage through the chokepoint for the next 60 days, but whether Iran begins charging fees afterwards is a key question.

Iranian officials have suggested they may impose “service fees” on ships, a legally questionable move on an international waterway.

Another worry is that of the war resuming.

“We should bear in mind that Israel is not satisfied with the deal and that sentiment cuts across the political spectrum there,” Leow said, adding: “And they have elections coming up.”

Although elections are expected only in October, public sentiment in Israel has definitely soured on the deal. There is also speculation on whether the deal might be derailed by crossfire between Israel and Iranian-backed Hizbollah militia in Lebanon.

The Israelis are profoundly disappointed with the MOU which, in the view of Jerusalem, “welcomes a regime, bent on Israel’s destruction, back into the fold of civilised nations,” said Shalom Lipner, a former advisor to the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office.

The deal offers Iran a series of concessions in exchange for little more than promises to desist from its pursuit of nuclear weapons, said Lipner, now a non-resident senior fellow at the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative of the Atlantic Council, a thinktank based in the US capital.

“Meanwhile, billions of dollars will start flowing into Iran’s coffers, enabling Tehran to rehabilitate its network of terrorist proxies and ballistic missile programmes, which both remain outside the scope of the deal,” he added.

The concessions given to Iran chafe with the Americans -- even though the price of gas dropping below the US$4 a gallon is welcome news.

Criticism is particularly directed at the US$300 billion private fund intended to stimulate investment in Iran. The White House has been at pains to say that the money will not be drawn from US taxpayers. Reportedly, half the sum is already pledged and it is expected to be activated after a final US-Iran agreement is signed.

The MOU has punted the issues of Iran’s nuclear and missiles programme in pursuit of an immediate end to hostilities, said Joseph Ledford, an expert on American foreign policy at the Hoover Institution.

“Much of this MOU may never materialise. The US$300 billion reconstruction fund upsetting hawks on Capitol Hill is not worth the paper it’s written on. On the other hand, the resumption of oil sales and sanction waivers will strengthen the very regime that the US sought to diminish,” he said.

The US cannot trust Iran, he noted. “Verification and enforcement remain to be seen. The MOU should best be understood as an aspirational framework that the US will enforce with hard power should Iran not aspire to change,” he said.

“From Trump’s vantage, the MOU is a pragmatic exit from the war that provides economic relief and potential regional stability in return for another round of talks that could either lead to a more durable agreement or Operation Epic Fury II,” Ledford said.

Politically, the deal has set off bitter, bipartisan criticism. Democrats are unanimous in condemning the deal, seeing it as proof that the war was unnecessary and its conclusion rewarding Iran. New York Senator Chuck Schumer said Iran “took Trump to the cleaners” in June 18 remarks in Congress.

But the strongest reservation comes from the Republicans although it has been tempered by Trump’s hold over the party.

South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, a noted Iran hawk and Trump ally who had called for Congress to review and vote on the deal, mellowed after receiving an extensive briefing from the White House.

“Whether or not the United States can reach an acceptable, verifiable deal with Iran regarding its nuclear programme and other issues is yet to be determined, but I see little downside to trying,” he said on X.

He called the attempt “worthwhile” because a deal could facilitate the expansion of the Abraham Accords, which seek to normalise relations between Israel and its Arab neighbours.

But other Republicans saw little to their liking. Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy did not mince words, calling it the “worst foreign policy blunder in decades.”

“Iran’s left stronger, we’re left weaker,” he said.

Nikki Hailey, Trump’s former US Ambassador to the United Nations and his rival in the 2024 Republican primaries, also came down hard. “Hitting Iran’s nuclear and missile sites was the right move. This regime chants death to America, murders our troops, and attempts to assassinate Americans on US soil,” she said on X.

“Now, we plan to unlock billions of dollars and lift sanctions, with the promise of even more money. They will use that money the way they always do -- to further their nuclear ambitions and on terrorist proxies against us. It’s a huge mistake to pay to rebuild the threat we just destroyed,” she said.

Considerable angst also surrounds the future of the US presence in the Middle East.

The US is expected to maintain a heightened force posture in the region even while dismantling the naval blockade, said Jason Cambell, a former Pentagon official and security analyst at the Middle East Institute in Washington DC.

It will also have to harden its military bases in the Gulf to make them more capable of withstanding Iranian strikes.

But as the war recedes, the US can also expect to field some hard questions from its allies which have borne the brunt of the war. With Iran attacking their civilian and oil infrastructure and blocking the strait, the Arab monarchies had to curtail oil production and exports at a great cost to their economies.

Facing an emboldened Iran, the Arabs now have to deal with a new normal. They are exploring security partnerships with China, the US geopolitical rival, highlighting a potential remaking of regional alliances.

They also have to learn to manage Iran in ways that may leave the US uncomfortable. “There’s some expectation that part of this will be that many Gulf states effectively pay off Iran to not target them. There’ll be some more formal or creative way of phrasing it,” said Campbell.

The US, on the other hand, is hampered by the lack of diplomatic muscle, of having few ambassadors on the ground, he said.

“The US will remain the preferred partner, particularly on defence and security, for the foreseeable future,” Campbell said.

But there is an eroding of American diplomatic “energy” in the region, he said.

“It’s been preoccupied with this war. That’s understandable, but I think that the US is also missing a huge opportunity by not having ambassadors in place to engage with host nations to start having these conversations now.”