Opinion
Three days after President Donald Trump said the Iran deal was complete and would be signed on Sunday, his birthday, there is no agreed time on the signing. Earlier, a senior US official expected closure in “the next few days”. Iran’s Foreign Affairs Minister Abbas Araghchi confirmed the Supreme Leader was on board, but also said Iran wanted Israel out of Lebanon and would control the reopened Strait of Hormuz, ultimately with payment for passage.
These conditions are big “ifs”. If Iran reneges, after all of Trump’s many threats (“a whole civilisation will die tonight”) since he demanded its “unconditional surrender” in March, it would be the second time that the ayatollahs have humiliated a US president desperate for a deal.
On January 20, 1981, 444 days after the US embassy in Tehran was stormed in Ayatollah Khomeini’s Islamic revolution with 66 Americans taken hostage, and after months of negotiation, they were not released until president Jimmy Carter’s successor, Ronald Reagan, was sworn into office that day. The Iranians made sure Carter could not claim the successful return of the hostages on his watch as commander-in-chief.
Carter’s approval rating that day was 34 per cent. After 100 days of war with Iran, Trump’s approval rating is in the mid-30s.
Since April, Trump has claimed 38 times that a deal was close and the Iranians were desperate. On March 23, he said there were “major points of agreement, I would say — almost all points of agreement”.
But no deal was reached. After days of frustration last week, Trump was preparing attacks to force a deal. Trump said, “Iran is all talk and no action. They’ve taken too long to negotiate a deal that would have been great for them, now they will have to pay the price!!!” Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said the US would “negotiate with bombs”.
Trump’s threat was clear via Truth Social: “The United States will be hitting Iran VERY HARD TONIGHT. At some point in the not-too-distant future, we will be taking Kharg Island … and assume total control of their Oil and Gas Markets, much like we have with Venezuela.” Trump told Fox News that if Iran didn’t sign, “We’ll bomb the shit out of them.”
But on Friday (AEST), Trump was emphatic that a memorandum of understanding to end the war was successfully completed. “Discussions and final points have been, in both concept and great detail, approved by all parties involved … Time and place of the signing to be announced shortly.”
In the Oval Office, Trump could not have been clearer: “It’s something that’s going to get done, and if it doesn’t get done for any reason, which I can’t imagine that not happening, they want to sign it as much as I do, or more.”
“They will not only not have, they will not purchase, develop in any way, any shape, or form a nuclear weapon,” he said. Those restrictions were, in fact, on page one of President Obama’s 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran that Trump tore up. This latest deal only sets up a process to discuss the nuclear issues and how to resolve them.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has said Israel is not a party to the deal. But Iran’s foreign minister is insisting on an end to the fighting in Lebanon and an Israeli withdrawal. We will see how Trump’s words about Bibi – “I call the shots. I call all the shots” – are applied.
For weeks, the fog of peace has clouded efforts to end the war. We are finally at the moment of truth: we can measure what Trump says against what is real. Trump is on the brink of this deal. But so is his presidency.
If the US government operated under a Westminster system, and this deal collapses, Trump would be forced to resign as president. He would do so because he misled Congress and the American people. He would lose a vote of confidence in Congress.
But that is not how the American republic works. Its constitutional system has three exit doors for a president: illness or mortality, resignation or impeachment. This Congress, dominated by the president’s party, will not enforce the latter.
Whether or not the deal is signed, Trump will tough it out with huge costs likely to be paid at the midterm elections in November. His party’s leaders in Congress know they are facing a potential loss of power. But Trump continues to spit out lines – “I love the inflation” – that are toxic to Republicans running to keep their control of Congress.
Even if this deal is signed in the coming days, will it be ill-fated like Trump’s 27-nation Board of Peace for Gaza? There is no “stabilisation force” on the ground in Gaza. No disarmament of Hamas. No reconstruction of Gaza is under way. The humanitarian crisis remains catastrophic. Israel has expanded the land it controls in Gaza.
Trump’s diplomacy is littered with failures. In addition to Gaza, there are three unfinished wars: Iran, Lebanon and Ukraine. Will they really be ended? And the futures of Taiwan and Cuba are pending.
Trump started the war in Iran and has single-handedly sabotaged the global economy. Australia’s economy is in a mess because of Trump. And Trump is piling more tariffs on Australia.
Trump is celebrating his 80th birthday. No present from Iran delivered yet to the White House.
Bruce Wolpe is a senior fellow at the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre. He has served on the Democratic staff in the US Congress and as chief of staff to former prime minister Julia Gillard.
Bruce Wolpe is a senior fellow at the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre. He has served on the Democratic staff in the US Congress and as chief of staff to former prime minister Julia Gillard.