President Donald Trump’s deal with Iran has received a lot of flak from both sides of the spectrum for its supposed shortcomings. Is it a failure before it’s even finalized? No, but that won’t stop the angry backbiting over an agreement that looks like it could significantly weaken Iran’s ability to cause trouble in the Middle East.
Let’s be clear: If Trump’s deal leads to a non-nuclear Iran, a freer flow of oil to the global economy, and a more stable Mideast, that will be a net gain for everyone concerned.
For the record, no, we’re not entirely satisfied, either. We didn’t want Trump to give an inch to the mullahs.
“The only choice they should be offered is to give up everything or lose it all to the almighty forces of the U.S. and Israeli militaries,” we wrote in late May.
But that was before people on both the left and the right began complaining about committing ground troops. Our own I&I/TIPP Poll showed a 57% majority of Americans opposed sending U.S. ground troops into Iran.
Those of us who have been around since Vietnam remember quite well that even the most gung-ho supporters of military action often recant when troops get wounded or killed. It happened in Vietnam, in Iraq, and in Afghanistan. It would have been no different in Iran.
Meanwhile, continuing the war and leaving Iran entirely bombed out and devastated would have perhaps set off a global recession of epic proportions as oil prices spiked. As it is, inflation-adjusted oil prices peaked recently at $109.70 a barrel. Prices are now at $77.02 a barrel.
So Trump didn’t “lose” a war. There was never a real war to begin with. A war almost always requires troops, direct battle, and a will to win.
The president didn’t have public or congressional backing for that. But he did show Iran’s rulers how easily the U.S. could make their lives hell. Sure, they’re talking tough right now because they survived, but they’ll tread more softly in the future. Especially with a U.S. president like Trump.
Trump’s moves also showed other countries in the region — Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon — that the best way to thrive is to stay on America’s good side.
It will also help support the Abraham Accords, which, through trade and revived diplomatic ties, will help normalize Israel as a permanent country in the Mideast, despite the unabated, implacable hatred from the most extreme Islamist groups. That hatred, sadly, will never end.
So Trump has enlarged America’s influence and strength in the vital Mideast.
We don’t know what would have happened had the U.S. doubled down on its air and naval attacks by sending in ground troops and compelling a definitive end to Iran’s regime. But even destroying much of its former leadership, along with most of Iran’s navy, air force, and nuclear facilities, didn’t have the hoped-for effect of eliminating Iran’s leadership.
Even the hawkish National Council of Resistance of Iran, “welcomed the emerging U.S.-Iran understanding aimed at ending hostilities while asserting that peace poses a greater threat to the survival of the Islamic Republic than military confrontation,” the group’s president-elect, Maryam Rajavi, said in a statement.
“War is this regime’s shield against popular uprisings, while peace and a ceasefire are, as Khomeini put it, like ‘poison’ for it,” Rajavi said. “The overthrow of the regime is the responsibility of the Iranian people and their organized Resistance.”
So the regime’s bitterest rivals see the end of hostilities as a positive. A weakened government, in this case, is better than anarchy. But it also may give space for new opposition to arise in Iran, which has been under the brutal thumb of fundamentalist religious zealots and their murderous domestic police for 47 years.
Removing the current mullah-led dictatorship would have cost billions of dollars and perhaps thousands of American and Iranian lives. Would it have been worth it? Maybe not. Especially given the growing U.S. opposition against deepening America’s involvement in Iran.
That said, Trump’s impulse to destroy Iran’s legacy regime, guilty of kidnapping American diplomats, engaging in global terrorism, and murdering tens of thousands of their own citizens, was the right one.
We would have vastly preferred getting rid of the current regime, but Americans didn’t support that. Instead, we have a 14-point agreement (with many details still to be worked out) that includes “a pledge never to produce or obtain a nuclear weapon and the willingness to have further discussions about other details.”
Trump’s moves — destroying Iran’s military, putting its foreign enablers on notice, decimating Iran’s leadership ranks, and not allowing Iran to build or buy a nuclear weapon — are big steps forward. Trump would have liked to dislodge the mullahs from power, but at what cost? Critics hate to answer such questions.
All in all, it’s less than we wanted, but more than we hoped for, given 47 years of U.S.-Iran stalemate punctuated by repeated acts of Iranian terrorism, proxy attacks against Western targets including the U.S., and ongoing threats to our main Mideast ally, Israel. Iran is now a pariah state on parole, without nuclear weapons and with a severely damaged military.
All in all, a pretty good outcome for three and a half months’ work.
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
