I have been reading the comments on my posts, and about 90% of you have the same basic reading of the Memorandum of Understanding: it’s hard to say how it would be any different than if Iran had written it without any input from US negotiators.
It pretty much has everything the Iranians demanded over the past few months, including a provision for what amounts to reparations in the amount Iran requested: $300 billion. Not that I expect that they will ever see that money, because I fully expect that Iran has no intention of ever signing a “final deal.” It has already gotten most of the sanctions relief it wanted front-loaded.
The “pay for performance” part of the deal, the reparations, would be icing on the cake, but functionally speaking, Iran will get most of the sanctions relief it wants just by staying at the negotiating table and demanding extensions on the 60-day deadline, which certainly will be granted. Trump has extended every redline deadline he set when he held all the cards. Now that he has thrown away his high cards, it’s hard to believe that he wants to go through everything all over again, given how much he gave up to get this pig in a poke.
A lot of you think: there go the midterms. After all, Trump rolled the dice, put his administration’s credibility on the line, and when push came to shove, the “art of the deal” delivered…squat.
Let me dissent on that point. Looking at the deal through the lens not of history, or good foreign policy, or what is best for the country, but just focusing on what is best for the midterm elections, Trump likely made the right decision.
Not a good decision. Not a decision I agree with. Nor one that is good for America and the world in the long run.
But one that is justifiable if you think that salvaging the midterm elections is the sole variable with which he should be concerned.
First, let’s stipulate: Trump created the crisis he is trying to get out of. He had bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities, and it seems highly improbable that Iran could have built a nuclear weapon prior to 2027, when Trump would not be staring down the barrel of a shotgun called the midterm elections.
One could argue, as I would, that waiting for better timing would have served him well, and failing that, calling a sorta-kinda-not-really cease-fire when he did was a disastrous mistake, as it gave Iran a lot of breathing room, allowing them to jerk us around for months at the negotiating table, putting the midterms at risk.
But here we are. As Trump said, Iran had us over a barrel. If we didn’t open the Strait, disaster was nigh. On that, I truly believe he was correct, because almost every trick he could use to keep oil prices even down to the high level they were at was exhausted.
🚨WATCH: Trump repeats his admission that he had “no choice” but to cave to the Iranian blackmail https://t.co/HDLFdVAEvI pic.twitter.com/fNkhF3Ujm0
— Raylan Givens (@JewishWarrior13) June 17, 2026
It’s remarkable that Trump admitted that in the game of chicken between Iran and the United States, in which they closed the Strait for the world, and we closed the Strait for Iran, we had to blink. But there he said it. We had to blink because the alternative was economic disaster.
He knew that allowing an oil crisis and a market crash would trash any opportunity for a midterm miracle. Winning elections in the midst of an economic crisis is, shall we say, difficult for a party in power, and since Iran doesn’t have elections and we do, the clock was ticking faster for us. If we could maintain the blockade, we would beat Iran. Failing that, our leverage disappears.
Most objective observers believe that Iran won the negotiations. That’s not to say that Iran wasn’t deeply hurt—it was. Objectively speaking, Iran is for the moment far worse off than it was, and its nuclear program will take years to recover. Its top leadership was nearly wiped out, as was much of its military (not civilian) infrastructure.
But then again, everybody knows that Germany lost World War II despite the fact that not a single Allied soldier set foot on German territory before the armistice. Germany lost because they were exhausted and had lost the will to fight, not because their country was invaded and its military defeated.
Of course, the “victory” over Germany was practically Pyrrhic. Allied forces actually lost more troops than the Central Powers did, and most of the physical destruction took place in Allied territory. Russia, of course, fell to the communists. And the “victory” led to World War II, the disintegration of the Middle East into the hellhole it is today, and inevitably to World War II.
In other words, victory on the battlefield does not equate to being victorious in any meaningful sense. The point is to achieve political ends that improve the world and your position. Trump’s assessment, which I believe is likely correct, was that going for the jugular in Iran would destroy his political power here at home. The cost of military victory was too high.
As in Vietnam, a series of tactical victories still led to strategic defeat. That’s a very tough pill to swallow.
Will Trump’s apparent surrender mean political doom here at home? Ironically, I don’t think so. It certainly won’t help him, since many of his supporters are angry, and his political opponents will take the opportunity to crow, as they should.
“I told you so,” though, turns out to not be a very potent political weapon, and when gas prices come down, many swing voters will be somewhat appeased.
The Dems midterm warning sign is pretty clear:
There are high quality polls (Ipsos, MU Law, & NBC), which show Dems shy of their generic ballot benchmark in past wave years.
Their Dems avg. lead is just 3 pts… & Dems need a 3-4 pt win to take the House given redistricting. pic.twitter.com/qPy5CsxFZS
— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) June 15, 2026
By most measures, Trump should be in deep trouble for the midterms. Midterms are never good for the party in power, and that goes double when people are unhappy with how things are going, as they most certainly are. Trump’s numbers are atrocious.
But people hate Democrats, and their numbers are remarkably bad; given redistricting, they need to greatly overperform in order to take the House and win the Senate. The polling is not that great for them, and the polls were taken before gas prices started to fall dramatically.
The semi-end to the war changes the equation a lot. Perhaps enough to give Republicans a margin of victory, given the correlation of forces. Democrats are choosing absolutely horrendous candidates, giving the Hamas-Communist wing of their party the power to choose candidates.
Obviously, these variables hardly guarantee a Republican victory, but my off-the-cuff assessment is that Trump may have provided the margin of victory in November.
Maybe. Especially since almost everybody who is disgusted by this “deal” will faithfully go out and vote for Republicans, given the alternative of enabling the communists’ victory.
We can kvetch all we want about what a disaster this deal is. We can point out that Trump is trying to save himself from a quagmire he created. We can point out how Trump is sacrificing long-term gains for short-term wins. We can rage, as I am internally, that Trump promised us filet mignon and delivered an excrement sandwich.
But Trump’s calculus, it seems, is that we will still vote for Republicans despite all that, because what choice do we have?
Looking in the rear-view mirror, we can identify all the mistakes that led to this point. We SHOULD do that, because the alternative is being a cuck, and also learning nothing. And there should be a reckoning. Hiding our heads in the sand is pathetic.
But that doesn’t change a thing right now. And Trump knows that. He’s not going to admit his errors. He’s demanding that we swallow that excrement sandwich, and betting that we will. And, to be honest, that’s a pretty good bet on his part.
Why doesn’t anyone call balls and strikes anymore?
I voted for Trump, but I can’t in good conscience say this Iran deal feels even remotely close to a win.
We don’t always have to cheerleaders.
We should all be willing to call it like it is…
That’s truly American!
— Chris Fenton (@TheDragonFeeder) June 17, 2026
His cheerleaders will cheerlead, and his supporters who are upset will bitch, rightly, that we are being gaslit. But Trump’s bet that we will vote as he wants in November is a pretty good one.
You can count me as a severe critic of this “deal,” but also as a doubter that it will hurt him much this November. The higher price will be paid in the months and years down the line as Iran strengthens again and continues doing what it has done for nearly half a century. And not only Iran. Others watched this debacle and are changing calculations.
Much of the internal debate among Republicans will be between those who think that the midterms are the most important issue and those who think that Trump put his presidency on the line to achieve an important victory and came up empty. That’s an important debate.
But in the end, Trump made his decision: the midterms matter more than anything else to him right now. We have to live with that assessment, because we voted him in to make it.
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