Trump declares Iran deal dead: Was this the plan all along?

If Iran has ever done a great service to the United States, it came over the last month. In essentially disregarding the memorandum of understanding, the Islamic Republic has provoked President Donald Trump to declare the deal “over.”To put it lightly, Trump’s Iran deal greatly benefited Tehran and put the U.S. and its allies at serious risk. Despite killing much of Iran’s leadership, pushing back its nuclear capabilities, and decimating its military, the U.S. negotiated as if it were the country on the ropes.The best-case scenario was always that Tehran would “fumble the bag” — and what a generational bag fumbling it was. The surrendering Trump administration was willing to reintegrate Iran into the global economy, lift all sanctions, unfreeze funds, and rebuild its economy with a $300 billion restoration fund. In return, known liars pinky swore they wouldn’t restart their nuclear program or close the Strait of Hormuz again. They closed the strait two days after they signed the MOU, to the surprise of nobody outside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

THE EMPEROR’S NUCLEAR CLOTHES: TRUMP IRAN DEAL AND THE NAKED KINGIran then continued attacking ships in the strait in blatant violation of the agreement, while calling for Trump’s assassination in retaliation for the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.Was this a case of “4-D chess” by the Trump administration to show the world that Iran is incapable of peace, even when it has every material incentive? If so, bravo. Because all Iran had to do was lie low for a while while its economy was being rebuilt, and then attack from a position of strength down the road. Instead, the jihadi regime just couldn’t help violating the agreement.Or, did Trump just get incredibly lucky? Iran gave the Trump administration a second chance to wield the leverage it spent months accumulating through Operating Epic Fury — leverage that appeared to be flushed down the toilet upon agreeing to the MOU. If this was a stroke of luck, then Trump’s legacy has some serious plot armor.From here, Trump can go one of two ways: strike while the iron is hot and the public is least likely to be negatively swayed by further intervention, or rip up the MOU and negotiate something much more punitive toward the regime. Given Tehran’s actions, it is highly unlikely that negotiating with the current regime would bear any meaningful fruits or that the country demanding reparations for the war would agree to anything less than American capitulation.After the announcement of the disastrous Iran deal, the reactions from conservatives fell under one of two categories: “What the heck is Trump thinking?” and “Trust the process.” I was in the former camp, but if Trump was expecting the deal to fall through all along, then I must admit this was a really smart play. The deal was so bad for the U.S. and so lucrative for Iran that the only two ways I can explain it are that either Trump wanted to show the world that Iran couldn’t even hold to a one-sided deal in their favor, or that he and Vice President JD Vance are complete amateurs. Given Trump’s criticism of former President Barack Obama’s Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, it would make no sense whatsoever for him to seriously agree to an MOU that suffers from the same fatal flaws — especially after all our military success from the bombing campaign. But on the other hand, it is possible that Trump and Vance were looking for a short-term win in the court of domestic public opinion ahead of the midterm elections. After all, the campaign has been extremely unpopular, despite the success, and if Republicans lose in November, there is a good chance we will see another impeachment. This would be very short-sighted thinking, because the GOP could easily lose regardless of the war, and risking empowering Iran isn’t worth the limited reward.TWO WEEKS TO STOP THE WAR: TRUMP’S TREPIDATIOUS IRAN TIMELINESome movies are so bad, they’re actually good. Mike Myers’s The Cat in the Hat is a great example of this. Similarly, Trump’s Iran deal was so bad, it was actually good, because it showed Iran to be incapable of peace even in the face of a $300 billion bribe. Was this Trump’s plan all along? We’ll never know. It’d be ingenious if it were.But to quote Myers’s 2003 cult classic, if Trump really thought bribing Iran into peace would work at face value, “You’re not just wrong — you’re stupid.”