For years, President Donald Trump insisted that he would be able to strong-arm Iran into negotiations where the United States would steamroll the Islamic Republic’s leaders. Trump promised that through sheer force of will, backed with American military might, any deal he crafted would far surpass the nuclear agreement (formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) that President Barack Obama negotiated in 2015.
But even after weeks of U.S. and Israeli bombardment, Iran has not given Trump the unconditional surrender he craves. Instead, the bleak reality of the situation is finally becoming clear — for seemingly everyone but the president. In other words, despite his criticism of the nuclear deal that Trump unceremoniously scrapped in his first term, it’s better than anything he could hope to achieve in the presently sclerotic peace talks between Washington and Tehran.
Even after weeks of U.S. and Israeli bombardment, Iran has not given Trump the unconditional surrender he craves.
The U.S. sat alongside Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France and Germany in crafting the JCPOA, giving it the heft of the world’s major powers acting in concert. Under the terms of the JPCOA, Iran significantly scaled back its nuclear enrichment capabilities and pledged to never seek a nuclear weapon, and it was prohibited from enriching uranium past a very low point for the next 15 years. In return, Iran would receive relief from the international sanctions that had been stifling its growth for years and access to assets frozen in banks around the world.
It was a triumph of more than a decade of diplomacy — but Republicans, and some Democrats, didn’t see it that way. Many were upset that Tehran would be able to tap into billions in previously withheld funds and could potentially wait out the expiration date on most of the deal’s provisions. The loudest voices in favor of regime change were irate that the deal was limited in scope to Iran’s nuclear program and didn’t address its ballistic missiles or do more to constrain the country’s power in the region.
Meanwhile, Trump was sure that anything Obama could do, he could do better. He spent years attacking the negotiations on the platform then known as Twitter before he’d even begun running for president. Once he was elected, it was clear that the deal was on borrowed time, despite the International Atomic Energy Agency repeatedly confirming that Iran was upholding its end of the bargain. Trump finally pulled the U.S. out of the agreement in 2018, urged on by his then-national security adviser, John Bolton. The theory from Bolton and other neoconservatives was that a renewed sanctions campaign would bring Iran back to the table, allowing Trump to craft a deal more favorable in his eyes. (Spoiler: That very much did not pan out.)
With the deal in tatters, Iran resumed its previous enrichment activities. The Biden administration was unable to convince a skeptical Tehran to take the deal, leaving the matter for an emboldened Trump to face upon his re-election.
Last year, Trump launched a brief bombing campaign against Iran’s nuclear program, hoping that if he couldn’t fully destroy it, he at least could set it back. He initially declared it a total success, only to backtrack in the lead-up to the war he launched in late February.
Trump’s folly of a war has done little but prove that the saber-rattling from Republicans and other anti-Iran hawks was mostly bluster. A military campaign like the one started weeks ago was not enough to topple the regime and in effect has empowered the hard-liners in Tehran to hold the line against future concessions. Meanwhile, anyone influential in Iran who is still alive and might favor a long-term peace deal can’t be sure we would uphold our end of the deal this time.
Iran’s leadership, fractured as it is after the death of a supreme leader, also knows that it’s in a better position than it was in 2015. The world’s great powers are more divided than the unified front they presented during the “P5 plus 1” talks leading to the deal’s completion. There are no new United Nations Security Council sanctions waiting to be applied — not with the U.S. as the aggressor this time around and Russia and China firmly in Iran’s corner. And Iran’s willingness to close the Strait of Hormuz has shown its ability to counterpunch is stronger than Trump ever seemed to consider.
Iran’s leadership, fractured as it is after the death of a supreme leader, also knows that it’s in a better position than it was in 2015.
The maximalist terms that Vice President JD Vance presented during the first round of talks in Pakistan earlier this month were roundly rejected, and there’s yet to be signs that a second round would be more successful. There are reports that whatever deal is struck may wind up being along the contours of the 2015 deal, even as Trump still wants to expand the scope to hit other issues like Iran’s funding of proxy militias. But there’s been little talk about what Iran would receive in return, especially given Trump’s reluctance to launch an Iraq-style nation building exercise.
There was a time when you could potentially copy the exact terms of the JCPOA, slap Trump’s name on it and call it a win. That time has passed.
There’s something of the dog that caught the car about Trump’s misguided attempts to rein in Iran. Any new deal would have to take the new status quo into consideration, where Iran is less likely to be cowed by the threat of force. And the fact is that the U.S. is in a worse position now than it was in 2015.
Hayes Brown is a writer and editor for MS NOW. He focuses on politics and policymaking at the federal level, including Congress and the White House.