These are no longer rumors. The agreement is before us, and on some points it is even worse than the 14 leaked clauses.
The gap between Donald Trump’s declarations and reality has never looked so wide. It is a troubling and frightening gap, one that raises concern that something went wrong in the judgment of Trump and his two loyal envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. Claims that something with the scent of corruption influenced this puzzling agreement are already being heard in the United States. And the more the final, authoritative version of the agreement is revealed, the more the concerns grow.
Start with Lebanon. The agreement turns it into an Iranian protectorate.
The first clause of the agreement addresses Iran and Lebanon in the same breath: an end to the war. But this is an end that only strengthens Hezbollah, just as the agreement as a whole strengthens Iran. After all, there are international resolutions, including UN Security Council Resolution 1559 from 2004 and Resolution 1701 from 2006, that require Hezbollah to disarm. Those resolutions do not appear anywhere in the clauses now being revealed.
But what is the Security Council compared with Iran’s dictate, when Iran emerges as the great winner of the memorandum of understanding? We thought Iran had been militarily defeated. Perhaps it was. But the United States has been strategically defeated.
The agreement is a slap in the face to the Iranian people, many of whom took to the streets in mass protests and were killed in the thousands. It is also a slap in the face to the Lebanese people, who, according to every possible poll, longed for the moment they could free themselves from the Iranian boot. Trump betrayed them.
In his speech yesterday, as in his remarks over the past 10 days, he transformed the fanatics ruling Tehran into reasonable and rational actors. Now they rule with an American insurance certificate. Tens of millions hear this and cannot believe it. Is this the president of the world’s strongest power? Has he lost his judgment?
It was Trump, and no one else, who argued that Iran was developing ballistic missiles with far longer ranges, even though U.S. intelligence said their range was limited to 2,000 kilometers. It turns out Trump was right. But as with the nuclear issue, he made a U-turn.
On April 1, in an official White House statement, Trump said one of the goals of the war was “to destroy Iran’s ballistic missile stockpile and production capability.” Yesterday, in a complete reversal, he declared that it was acceptable for Iran to continue developing ballistic missiles because other countries have them too.
By that logic, other countries also have nuclear weapons. So who knows, perhaps that will be his next statement, because Iran now knows he is pliable and vulnerable to pressure.
There is no chance Iran intends to implement anything in the agreement. When it comes to Iran’s commitments, the text is entirely vague.