Dissecting Trump's Iran Screwup
This has been the biggest self-own by any state in the past century.
Trump’s war with Iran is the single dumbest foreign policy move by a major power since Kaiser Wilhelm II.
I say this as someone who was a grown-ass man by the time George W. Bush invaded Iraq. I saw Bush and his advisers receive the State Department analysis laying out all the postwar planning involved and decide, “nah.” I watched them declare that Iraqis would celebrate the invasion and transform Iraq into a carbon-copy replica of these Great United States. I bore witness to the “de-Baathification” campaign, in which the Coalition Provisional Authority shitcanned hundreds of thousands of armed soldiers and security officers, leaving them without a pot to piss in. I then watched these very people exploit the country’s sectarian divisions and plunge it into violent chaos.
When I declare Trump’s war the greatest foreign policy fuck-up since the Kaiser, I say it as someone who followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. I watched Putin bet everything on the assumption that Ukrainians are really Russians at heart and would not resist. I watched him decide on that basis that an invasion force of 190,000 troops would suffice to pacify a country of 44 million people. What’s more, he would somehow impose a permanent occupation on a society that had cast off an aspiring dictator twice in ten years—and that guy wasn’t even a foreigner.
Russia’s invasion was dumb. But it was not “guaranteed unconditional surrender within 90 days” dumb.
Vietnam was also unwinnable. But Lyndon B. Johnson and his advisers (most of them, at least), knew this going in. They persisted in the belief that withdrawing would have damaged American credibility and cost Johnson the domestic support he needed to pass his Great Society reforms. These rationales are logical enough that they might persuade a reasonable person—not me, but a different reasonable person—that the war was worth it.
What about the gold standard of military blunders, Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union? There was simply no way that the Wehrmacht could have subdued a powerful state comprising fifteen percent of the world’s land mass. But unlike Trump, Hitler possessed the stomach to withstand the massive military losses involved. Say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism, but the guy had balls.
So, yes, I stand behind my assertion: Trump’s war is the dumbest foreign policy decision by a major power in the past hundred years. This becomes clear upon reviewing the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the U.S. and Iran that was signed on Wednesday.
The MOU is a document of capitulation. It contains two types of capitulation, in particular:
terms of immediate and unconditional surrender; and
terms of surrender to be finalized within 60 days by a permanent agreement.
Let us consider each in turn. (Unless denoted by quotation marks, the provisions below are paraphrased, not reproduced verbatim.)
Terms of Immediate Capitulation
Hostilities against Iran and Lebanon will cease immediately. Not only must the U.S. stop its war on Iran, but Israel must halt its Lebanon campaign.
The U.S. will respect Iran’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and not interfere in its internal affairs. A war explicitly aimed at ending a regime concludes with the aggressor formally recognizing the regime’s right to rule.
The U.S. will end its naval blockade within 30 days.
Iran will use “its best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels, with no charge” through the Strait of Hormuz. But—and here I did a double-take, as in physically moving my head back to re-read the passage—this promise of free commercial traffic will last “for 60 days only.”
In other words, the Strait of Hormuz, through which commercial vessels have largely moved unimpeded for decades, will, 60 days henceforth, be subject to tolls paid to the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Before the latest war, Iran had never dared charge tolls or close off traffic. After all, it had no way of predicting what kind of retaliation it might face from the U.S. and other powers.
Trump’s war gave it the excuse it needed to try. For the past three months, Iran has proved that it can shut down the strait and that nobody will do a damn thing about it. Thanks to Trump, Iran will be able to take a cut of commercial goods moving through one of the global economy’s critical chokepoints.
The U.S. will “make fully available for use, the frozen or restricted funds and assets of the Islamic Republic.” This money has been tied up for decades. Now, Iran can use it as it sees fit.
Finally, the U.S. will immediately lift all restrictions on Iran’s oil exports. It is worth noting that, for almost all of its existence, the Islamic regime has not been able to freely export oil (with one exception, which we will discuss below).
Issues Subject to a Final Deal
So much for the immediate surrender terms. Other provisions call for American capitulation pending a final agreement within 60 days.
What are they? Let’s take a look:
The U.S. will remove its military forces from Iran’s “proximity” within 30 days of the final settlement. Just what “proximity” means is not specified. The Persian Gulf falls within Iran’s “proximity,” and U.S. navy vessels have traversed its waters for decades. Is that going to end? The fact that “maybe” is one possible answer is itself astounding.
The U.S. will terminate all sanctions against Iran. This too is unprecedented. Recall that the Islamic Republic has almost never been able to export oil without restriction, with one exception. That exception was the 31-month period from October 2015 to May 2018, when the U.S. adhered to the Iran Nuclear Deal, formally known by its official acronym, the JCPOA.
Obama’s signature foreign policy achievement, the JCPOA placed limits on Iran’s nuclear program in return for sanctions relief. It also contained a “snapback” mechanism, in which sanctions would be reimposed if a special commission deemed Iran to be in violation of the terms.
Trump, of course, derided the JCPOA as “weak.” In 2018, he pulled the U.S. out of it. Not that he had any familiarity with the terms; all he knew was that the treaty had been concluded by a Black guy. Donald Trump did not allow Black people to rent his condos, and he damn sure was not about to let one set the country’s nuclear policy.
But while the JCPOA allowed Iran to export oil, that provision took effect only after the International Atomic Energy Agency certified its compliance with the treaty’s nuclear disarmament provisions. Under Trump’s MOU, Iran can just go ahead and sell the oil.
Besides, not even the JCPOA lifted all sanctions; the trade embargo, export controls, and a host of sanctions related to the regime’s human rights abuses and support for terrorist groups remained in effect.
It is worth noting, then, that Trump’s agreement, unlike Obama’s, pledges to eliminate all sanctions.
The point here is not to justify the prewar sanctions arrangement. It is merely to underscore Trump’s cowardice and stupidity. Some sanctions are warranted given the regime’s indirect support for war crimes by its foreign proxies (Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis). But the prewar status quo was excessive.
It is one thing to use sanctions to inhibit a state’s capacity to wreak damage on other countries. But the Islamic regime has inflicted the vast majority of its crimes on its own people. Sanctioning a state for its domestic human rights abuses makes no sense. Unless the sanctions exclusively target members of the regime, they amount to punishing the victims for the sins of the perpetrator.
Iran “reaffirms that it shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons.” Never mind that Iran has been saying this for decades. Now, it is saying it to Donald J. Trump, which means he can tout it as a “concession.”
But read a bit further, and you realize how empty this promise is. According to the next provision, “the Islamic Republic of Iran will maintain the current status quo of its nuclear program.”
I’m sorry, what?
That whole deal about destroying Iran’s nuclear capabilities? That thing Trump claimed to have done in 2025 only to pledge, in defiance of the linear progression of time, to also do in the year 2026? The very issue that the U.S. and half the international community have been working to achieve for the past twenty years? Apparently, that is out the window.
Brace yourselves, however, because we have yet not reached the most bizarre section of the agreement.
A lot of crazy shit has happened in the past ten years. But if someone told me a week ago that Donald Trump will agree to pay $300 billion in reparations, it might have stretched to the breaking point my already-distended sense of reality.
Before you fall off your chair, I must inform you that, no, the United States government is not about to pay reparations to African-Americans (even though the legal, economic, and moral case for them is unassailable).
Still, Trump (along with whatever other sorry sons of bitches he can cobble together) has agreed to pay $300 billion in reparations to someone, and that someone is the Islamic Republic of Iran. It is right there in provision number six:
The United States of America undertakes, with regional partners, to develop a definitive mutually agreed plan with at least USD 300 Billion, for the reconstruction and economic development of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
What Are We Even Doing?
Iran’s got Trump “by the balls,” remarked one senior U.S. official.
You don’t say.
On February 28th, Trump attacked Iran. He did so with the backing of Israel, which joined the campaign, along with a host of domestic cheerleaders from AIPAC to FOX News to New York Times columnist Bret Stephens.
All gleefully supported this war despite its obvious futility. The fact that Iran would paralyze traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is not some newfangled idea. It has been part of U.S. war planning for decades, and Trump’s military brass surely warned him about it. Still, Trump, being Trump, proceeded anyway.
Now, the world’s preeminent superpower has revealed itself to be impotent against a third-rate power and its off-brand drones.
Trump’s war was not run-of-the-mill dumb. It was Kaiser Wilhelm II dumb. It was “driving Tsarist Russia into France’s arms, ensuring a two-front war” dumb. It was “challenging Britain’s naval dominance for no strategic gain and convincing it to ally with Russia and France” dumb. It was “self-evidently stupid and disastrous from the get-go” dumb.
Putin and Hitler had the will to keep their ill-conceived wars going. Lyndon Johnson could justify his actions without seeming insane. Trump has none of that. And he may well have bigger fuck-ups in store. What these might be is impossible to know.
You can’t predict stupid.