A preliminary agreement with Iran was signed. Today. In France. For the past week, there has been talk of where (Switzerland? France? Emirates?) and when (Friday? Saturday? Sunday?) the agreement would be reached.
But the confusion over the date and location pales in comparison to the discussions about its content. The content is so enigmatic in so many respects that there are still more questions than answers.
Of course, according to Trump's language, this is a "big, wonderful deal." But the US president has already said so many contradictory things....
So let me offer my assessment of what happened. In my last post, I stated that a war against the ayatollahs' regime, while justified and perhaps even necessary, is some 30 years overdue (in the 1990s, Iran, Russia, and China were weak, and the US was at the peak of its power). Moreover, it is the kind of war that requires patient and thorough preparation for a year or a year and a half, and then ends in a week or two. Of course, the current administration, neither Israeli nor especially American, has had a year to prepare. In Israel, the war has been raging for almost three years, since the October 7th attack, amid growing social polarization and massive internal conflict. Trump's ability to prepare for anything longer than three days and more thoroughly than the Trump Tower plans remains questionable.
As a result, the current agreement, as well as the three months of war that preceded it, are largely a disaster. Let's take a look.
1. The declared goals (by the American side) at the beginning of the war (in no particular order) were:
a) ensuring the security of Israel, which was under attack by Iranian militias and threatened by Iran itself,
b) changing the ayatollahs' regime and (in light of the then-fresh memories of the ayatollahs' massacres of their own people) ensuring the Iranian opposition's ability to rise to power. Trump uttered the words "Help is coming" and "when we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations."
c) preventing the continuation of Iran's nuclear program.
2. The undeclared, but supposed, goals of the US administration were:
a) a show of force.
b) opening the door to potential business opportunities and creating them—both for American businesses and for private members of the administration and their families.
3. The declared (and largely actual) goal of the Israeli administration was to ensure Israel's security in the only way that this administration seems to notice (sometimes necessary, but perhaps not the only way...).
4. The unstated goal of at least part of the Israeli executive was to consolidate their power, retain it, and improve their ratings ahead of the elections this fall.
5. The goal of the ayatollahs' regime remains the easiest to define: to stay in power, increase influence (ideally by achieving hegemony) in the region, destroy Israel and weaken the West, especially the United States.
A few months after the war began, on the day the 60-day ceasefire was signed, the conclusions are clear. Iran won this war, despite undoubtedly being militarily inferior. The weaknesses of Israel's government, and especially the United States', have been ruthlessly exposed. The bill for Israeli and Iranian society is high in every respect, but not just for them. Economically and politically, the entire so-called free world has been handed the bill. And it will be difficult to pay.
I write this with pain, but the lack of conclusions condemns us to potential, and potentially catastrophic, repetitions.
Let's see:
Israel remains threatened by Iran and its proxy armies (Hezbollah and Hamas). Iran has sought to shield them, and has done so skillfully. The Israeli-American alliance is severely weakened. Success has many fathers, failure is an orphan. Two such intensely narcissistic figures as Trump and Netanyahu would likely share the success somehow (even if each quietly took all the credit). Neither wants to take responsibility for the failure that was this war. The press is writing about the tone of the phone calls between the two leaders, and this is hardly a description of friendship and cooperation.
This week, Trump uttered these words:
If it weren’t for the United States of America — with me, because Obama
was the opposite — Israel would not exist right now. Israel would have
been blown off the face of the earth, 100 percent. And every smart
person in Israel knows that
It's probably unnecessary to point out that this statement is absurd.
Regarding regime change, Trump said today: "Regime change in Tehran was never our goal."
How this relates to the president's above-quoted words from the beginning of the war: "Help is coming" and "When we're done, power will be yours—take it," I leave to the readers to judge. Along with the reminder that in January, the ayatollahs murdered far more of their subjects than died in the last war.
However, the initially outraged world quickly decided (at least its media—both left-wing and right-wing—that in the face of Israeli attacks, let the ayatollahs murder (implicitly: their own property)—this says a lot about people in today's West.
Finally, Iran's nuclear program... Well, it's doing well. At the very beginning of the current conflict, on March 3rd, Trump's special envoy, Witkoff, spoke about the negotiations:
During that first meeting, both Iranian negotiators told us directly—without a shred of embarrassment—that they controlled 460 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60% and that they knew it could be used to produce 11 nuclear bombs.
The amount of enriched uranium Iran has accumulated, enriched to military levels (civilian uranium requires enrichment to 2-3%), roughly matches independent estimates, including those from the IAEA, and Witkoff (a very poor negotiator) was so concerned during the aforementioned interview that he was likely sincere. Just two or three weeks ago, President Trump publicly stated that he didn't care about the price of a gallon of gasoline in the US (a crucial indicator before the autumn midterm elections), but only that Iran not have a nuclear bomb. Well, that's a significant declaration. It's a shame it didn't last even a few weeks. The agreements recognize Iran's nuclear needs (without even mentioning civilian or peaceful needs). The current US administration was likely so moved by Iran's desire, based on oil, to generate green energy from nuclear energy (enriched to 20-30 times the value needed for a power plant) that it deemed this addition unnecessary. They were so impressed that the agreement explicitly stated: "Iran will maintain the status quo of its nuclear program." The safeguards are to be discussed within the next 60 days. These could prove groundbreaking, as it's not hard to guess that building the first A bomb will become a priority for the ayatollahs.
So much for America's declared goals.
As for the undeclared, some fortunes have certainly increased significantly. However, the show of force hasn't fared so well. Despite the dazzling display of missiles, the most noticeable military consequences are: the US launching numerous missiles, including expensive and difficult-to-find ones, a staggering bill for the American taxpayer, and the strain or disruption of existing alliances (including by demanding NATO members participate in the war when things started to get tough, even though the US hadn't even consulted before its outbreak). In Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan, they have their eyes on the ground. In Ukraine and the Gulf states where the Americans have bases (UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia), they are already thinking.
