So is it really over? Ever since the United States and Israel started the war in Iran, there has been talk about ending it. There have been many false starts. Remember when President Trump said it would be “finished pretty quickly”? That was in March. Remember when JD Vance was on the brink of boarding a plane to Islamabad to negotiate a deal — and then didn’t? That was in April.
This time could be different. There are reasons this deal might actually hold. At the same time, the problems between the U.S. and Iran haven’t become any easier to resolve. And then there is the Israel factor. Today I write about why this agreement might stick, but also why it might not.
Will it stick?
It was vintage Trump.
After days of alternating between threats to hit Iran “VERY HARD” and promises that a deal was “very close,” on Sunday the president finally got to announce that the U.S. and Iran had an agreement — on his 80th birthday no less. To mark the occasion, he called my colleague David Sanger, as a birthday cage fight was being set up on the White House lawn, and explained why this was great news.
The Strait of Hormuz would be “permanently toll-free,” Trump said. Iran would forgo high-level nuclear enrichment “forever.” The war had reshaped the Middle East in America’s favor.
But we don’t actually know what the agreement says. The two sides have digitally signed the document, but the text has not been released. We do know that the details about Iran’s future nuclear enrichment haven’t been sorted out yet, that Israel is still bombing Lebanon and that Iran’s foreign minister is talking about charging “fees” on the strait, rather than tolls.
In other words, as David wrote, the president seems to be describing Iranian concessions that have not actually been made. Also vintage Trump.
So what does this mean for the agreement? Can it hold up when the two countries still seem to have serious differences and might even understand the terms of the agreement differently?
My colleague Lara Jakes has a story looking at three reasons the deal might lead to long-term peace — and three reasons it might not. There are reasons to be optimistic. There are also reasons to be skeptical.
Why it might work
The reasons it might work boil down to this: The war really has become painful for both the U.S. and Iran.
Both want the Strait of Hormuz open. Iran shut the strait, which carries a big chunk of the world’s oil and gas exports, early on in the war, and it proved to be a game changer. It allowed Iran to hold the U.S. and the world hostage by pushing up energy prices and slowing economic growth. But Trump’s counter-blockade of the strait has caused Iran its own economic pain too, because it can’t export its own oil. Had the blockade gone on, Iran eventually could have had to stop pumping, which would have damaged its oil infrastructure.
Both have burned through weapons. The U.S. has shifted a huge number of troops and air defense missiles to the Gulf. The war has run down stockpiles and left places like Ukraine and Taiwan more exposed. Iran, by one estimate, has launched more than 1,500 missiles and 4,700 drones against Gulf states since the war began. (Though U.S. intelligence assessments in May estimated that Iran retained about 70 percent of its missile stockpiles.)
President Trump is desperate to declare victory. Trump campaigned on a promise to end wars, not start them. Iran has become a political headache. It is seen as a major factor in his record-low approval ratings. He’s seeing defections from his own Republican camp. And all this just a few months shy of midterm elections.
Why it might all fall apart
Plenty of reasons. But Israel and the Iranian nuclear question are making this especially messy.
Israel really doesn’t like the deal. It wanted this war. First, it persuaded Trump to launch strikes on Iran. Then it broadened the conflict to include Iran’s ally, Hezbollah, in Lebanon. And when it looked as if Trump was on the verge of a deal this weekend, Israel launched strikes on the outskirts of Beirut, prompting Trump to call Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “a difficult guy.” Iran is demanding that any peace deal include Lebanon; Israel doesn’t want its hands tied.
The nuclear question is unresolved. One of Trump’s justifications for the war was stopping Iran from ever having a nuclear weapon. Iran’s leaders have long insisted that their nuclear program is for civilian purposes and that it has a right to enrich uranium. Negotiators have yet to agree on whether and for how long Iran pauses enrichment, at what levels it can enrich uranium in the future and what happens to its existing stockpile of enriched uranium, Lara writes. These are all deeply contentious issues it took Barack Obama nearly two years to hammer out.
Sanctions and frozen assets. Speaking of Obama, Iran wants the U.S. to ease sanctions and unfreeze billions of dollars of its assets in foreign banks. It’s unclear if these issues are even addressed in the framework. But Trump has repeatedly berated Obama for giving Iran respite on both fronts in the 2015 nuclear deal Trump subsequently left, and he is highly sensitive to the idea that he might not be able to do better.
The Israel-Lebanon factor might be what determines whether this deal even lasts 60 days. If Israel doesn’t derail a push for long-term peace, the efforts to hammer out a nuclear agreement over the next two months might.
For now, the deal is scheduled to be officially signed Friday in Geneva. It’s the first step toward ending the war for good. Will there be a second?
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