Trump’s Iran – Over Memorial Day weekend, Donald Trump declared a U.S.-Iran agreement to end the war was imminent, then returned to the White House, canceled a golf outing, and posted that a deal was “largely negotiated” and close to “finalization.” Five days later, the Isla
By the time the Memorial Day weekend had burned off into Monday, Donald Trump had already told the story he wanted told.
He had skipped his son Donald Jr.’s wedding in the Bahamas. calling it “not good timing for me. ” and saying. “I have a thing called Iran.” He then canceled a scheduled golf outing at his Bedminster club and returned to the White House. The picture he painted afterward was confident and close to finished: he posted that an agreement between the United States and Iran to end the war was “largely negotiated” and near “finalization.”.
Five days later, the deal he promised still wasn’t there.
The Islamic Republic quickly disputed Trump’s characterization. And the sequence that followed didn’t read like negotiation—it read like one more round of premature declarations of victory that. according to the account laid out by Trump’s own critics. he has been issuing every few days since the war began. The dispute that Iran publicly made with Trump also fit a repeated rhythm Trump’s opponents say they have seen before: threats issued to strike Iran “to smithereens” if its leaders didn’t comply with what he wanted.
Trump’s own posts then shifted from certainty to conditional language. He backed away. posting that “if” he made a deal. “it will be a good and proper one. not like the one made by Obama.” He added another line designed to undercut the legitimacy of any agreement associated with the previous administration: “Unlike those before me who should have solved this problem many years ago. I don’t make bad deals!”.
At the core of that pivot was a problem that could not be posted away: there is no agreement to point to.
During a Wednesday Cabinet meeting at the White House, Trump shrugged off the inability to reach an agreement with the Islamic Republic. “We don’t need oil,” he said. “We don’t need the Strait [of Hormuz]. We don’t need anything.” In that framing, the U.S. could absorb the pressure without a deal.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum appeared to agree with the president’s message of domestic comfort. crediting Trump with “helping to keep the price of gas down at home.” The national average at the time is described as $4.459 per gallon. with prices over $6 per gallon in California. The account also says prices dropped 7% following Trump’s announcement that a deal was coming.
Trump’s tone then hardened to something more like an ultimatum. If Iran fails to make concessions, he said—referring to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth—“then the man on my left is gonna finish them off.”
For lawmakers already wary of what they are hearing, the urgency isn’t comforting. The details that have leaked about the proposed agreement. the account says. are weaker than the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that was negotiated over two years under the Obama administration among Iran and the United States. the United Kingdom. France. Germany. China. Russia and the European Union—and that Trump tore up upon taking office in 2017.
Under the reported tradeoff, the U.S. would lift sanctions and unfreeze billions in assets. withdraw military forces from the region. and allow Iran to keep certain aspects of its nuclear program. In return. Iran would reportedly re-open the Strait of Hormuz. which had been unrestricted before Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu attacked the country on Feb. 28.
Republican hawks reacted to those rumored commitments as surrender rather than leverage. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said the provisions made him wonder “why the war was started to begin with.” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz wrote that the terms being discussed—“billions of dollars. being able to enrich uranium & develop nuclear weapons. and having effective control over the Strait of Hormuz”—would amount to “a disastrous mistake.”.
Secretary of state Mike Pompeo went further. comparing the reported approach to the Obama team’s effort that would allow “the [Revolutionary Guard] to build a WMD program and terrorize the world.” The White House responded with an unprecedentedly direct retort: it warned Pompeo to “shut his stupid mouth and leave the real work to the professionals.”.
Behind the scenes, the administration’s diplomatic push appears to be struggling to translate pressure into an actual settlement. The account says the “peace envoys” attempting to broker the deal are Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, and it points to the gap between talk and outcome.
One snapshot of that gap came from GOP pollster and strategist Frank Luntz. who tweeted that “Insider reporting from an unnamed White House official says the Iran deal is ‘95% done.’ The remaining 5% of negotiations are focused on Iran opening the Strait of Hormuz and turning over all nuclear material.”.
The arithmetic doesn’t add up to what Trump has been selling. The most difficult points, by the description here, are the ones the parties still cannot agree on—despite assurances that Trump doesn’t want to rush things and despite his stated indifference to the midterms.
What does remain consistent is the political motion around the deal: a cycle of claims that it is close to completion, immediate backlash from Iran and from domestic critics, and then renewed insistence that the U.S. can endure without the concession being sought.
Whatever agreement eventually emerges—or whatever does not—the account insists the bigger reality under Trump is that the U.S. has “lost another war in the Middle East.” It also argues the president has put the fate of the world’s oil supply and the international economy into the hands of a strengthened Iran.
Trump’s confidence in the fight. the account says. came from a belief that toppling Tehran’s leadership could be quick and followed by a friendly arrangement. It says he became convinced he could install a cooperative leader to do his bidding. drawing a parallel to Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez. It also describes a “bizarre revelation” from the past couple of weeks: that the U.S. and Israel reportedly thought they could easily kill Iran’s existing leaders and bring back former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. who is described as best remembered for “Death to America.”.
That plan, the account says, went awry early on when they bombed Ahmadinjad’s house during the campaign—apparently in an attempt to free him from house arrest. The account adds that Ahmadinejad reportedly became “disillusioned” with the plot.
It also includes a comparison made by David Graham of The Atlantic, likening backing Ahmadinejad as a coup leader to “backing a coup against Donald Trump led by Al Gore.”
Trump’s own diplomacy allegedly complicated the situation further when he gathered all the Arab leaders on the phone early in the week to talk about negotiations. and demanded that they all sign on to the Abraham Accords to recognize Israel and normalize relations—reportedly shocking them into silence.
In the account’s final sweep. it says Trump is still acting under an illusion of being a triumphant savior of the Middle East and winning his “coveted Nobel Peace Prize. ” while his impulsive actions have. according to the author. left America diminished on the world stage and Iran entrenched as a regional power that the international community will have to reckon with.
It ends with a stark framing: “To all intents and purposes, it’s all over but the phony victory celebration—and the sycophantic paeans to his masterful non-achievement.”
Donald Trump Iran deal Strait of Hormuz Cabinet meeting Doug Burgum Pete Hegseth Lindsey Graham Ted Cruz Mike Pompeo Steve Witkoff Jared Kushner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Abraham Accords Netanyahu