Clear-Eyed Grasp that Trump’s JCPOA is Worse than Obama’s JCPOA, and that they are both based on the same fundamental principles.

Peloni

In an important article in Tablet, Trump’s JCPOA, Lee Smith examines President Trump’s nearing acceptance of an Iran agreement which increasingly and closely resembles the 2015 JCPOA which Trump long criticized as having been a betrayal of the American people by Obama.  Smith explains that while the Trump administration assures the world that any deal he accepts will be stronger than the agreement adopted by Obama, the public arguments used to justify it – including assurances that it will be a “good deal or no deal” – mimics the same language employed by Obama administration officials when they were promoting the JCPOA.  Smith additionally highlights unresolved questions regarding sanctions relief, frozen Iranian assets, and the handling of Iran’s enriched uranium stockpiles, emphasizing the lack of clarity of this deal resembles previous negotiations with Tehran.

Smith posits that the fundamental challenge for Trump lies in the fact that the long road taken by Trump employing maximum pressure and the recent air campaign to subdue the Iranians is being undermined with a final agreement which preserves the basic logic of the JCPOA rather which fails to eliminate Iran’s nuclear capabilities. Reminding us that Iran has historically used negotiations to gain economic and political advantages while preserving its long-term strategic options, Smith warns that the proposed deal would ultimately prove to be far worse than the original JCPOA, specifically because this policy retreat comes following years of pressure and conflict which were intended to produce a more favorable outcome for the United States. The consequence of this would be to indicate that the preference to surrender to Iran was always the wiser path.

This recalls the recent comments by MidEast & Geopolitical Analyst Matthew RJ Brodsky who noted that:

Iran never complied and we continued the 2-week ceasefire for 60 days+. Instead of behaving as the victors in this war, we’ve been chasing them ever since, and squandering our leverage. It’s clear the previous ceasefire was, in fact, “a bad deal.” Everything publicly available about the current negotiations suggests an even worse deal is on the way.

All those employed by Trump who were teenagers when Obama made the 2015 JCPOA opposed the war to begin with and don’t realize that they are saying the exact same nonsense that Team Obama said then.

Those of us who understand and have worked on this issue for more than a decade are not having now, just like we weren’t having it then.

As Smith notes, if Donald Trump – a pragmatic political outsider who campaigned on the charge that previous US leaders repeatedly failed the country by losing wars – is unwilling to use military force to secure what he sees as America’s peace and prosperity, it will only serve to provide greater support for all those who come after him to submit to Iranian demands rather than to ever consider using the military option to enforce US interests.  The likes of the isolationist wing adherents led by VP Vance will not try to outdo what Trump himself failed to do, making the Iranian pursuit of a nuclear bomb all but inevitable.  There can be only one form of negotiation which leads to securing the policy Trump ran on enforcing with Iran, and that is to finish the task he began with the elimination of Khamenei, and seemingly abandoned when he abruptly declared a two week ceasefire which has seen greater and greater levels of capitulation in the nearing two months, not two weeks, which followed.  While the economic pain imposed on Iran by Trump’s counter-blockade is significant, it is a porous counterweight which will only become more porous over time due to expanding land route shipments to China thru Pakistan, despite the latter ironically playing the role of Trump’s primary negotiating partner.

The only terms which will secure the goals Trump pursued in his political campaign and the recent war is that of unconditional surrender, which is instead being offset by a redo on Obama’s JCPOA hallmark legislation, which will likewise form Trump’s hallmark legacy if he accepts the deal he is currently pursuing and has reportedly all but achieved.