The Felon Dreads an Iran Deal Worse Than Obama’s

The Felon's Iran war was supposed to be quick and over in a few days - similar to Vladimir Putin's illegal invasion of Ukraine.  Like Putin's misadventure that has dragged on for going on four years, the Felon's misadventure shows no sign of an ending quickly and the Felon now finds himself in a mess of his own hubris filled creation.  In addition, the Felon has an added difficulty in that whatever exit strategy he may ultimately be able to cobble together, it may not be enough to satisfy Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu (the Felon reportedly read Benjamin Netanyahu the riot act earlier this week for wanting to launch strikes on Beirut, which could collapse the Felon's negotiations with Iran). Perhaps more disturbing to the egomaniac Felon, any deal he is able to put together could well make the deal Barack Obama structured look like a far better deal than the Felon's, perhaps the ultimate humiliation for narcissistic Felon.  A piece in The Atlantic looks at the tensions with Israel:

A U.S. official told Axios that on Monday that Donald Trump read Benjamin Netanyahu the riot act for wanting to launch strikes on Beirut, which could collapse American negotiations with Iran. The message, the official said, was “You’re fucking crazy. You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me. I’m saving your ass. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this.”

The spectacular bust-up, which Trump confirmed today, reveals a deeper problem. With a nuclear deal with Iran out of reach, Trump seems content to defer the problems he faces instead of squaring up to them. There may be an end to violence, but any peace will be temporary and inherently unstable. The war will likely resume at intervals over the next few years, with grave consequences for all concerned.

The U.S. and Iran are too far apart for the distance to be bridged with a lasting settlement. Instead, they are moving toward a narrow deal: the U.S. lifting its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and Iran allowing ships to transit in exchange for economic compensation. The nuclear issue—including what to do with Iran’s highly enriched uranium—would be deferred to later negotiations, which few expect to succeed.

Having placed himself - and the nation - in an impossible position which previous American presidents were smart enough to avoid, the specter of any deal the Felon does achieve looking like a loss compared to Obama's agreement that the Felon canceled is only increasing.  Another piece in The Atlantic looks at the Felon's growing dread of looking like a loser compared to Obama.  Here are article excerpts:

[The Felon] President Trump was on a conference call late last month from the Situation Room with leaders from across the Middle East and South Asia to pitch a deal that he believed was within reach to end the conflict in Iran. Trump asked for their support in a roll call, going one by one through Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain, and Pakistan. All answered in the affirmative. Trump’s tone, according to officials briefed on the conversation, suggested that he believed each country should be in his debt for taking on Iran.

But then Trump reached for something bigger: He proposed linking the Iran negotiations to a major expansion of the Abraham Accords, the U.S.-brokered agreements normalizing relations between Israel and some of its neighbors that Trump regards as a signature foreign-policy achievement. He suggested that those countries that hadn’t yet joined the Abraham Accords get on board—but received a less than lukewarm response. . . . Several times during the 90-minute call, Trump had to interject: “Hello? Hello? Anyone there?”

The awkwardness of the conversation, the details of which have not been previously reported, encapsulates what has gone awry in the roughly eight weeks since the United States and Iran entered a tentative cease-fire designed to allow negotiations for a longer-term deal. That agreement has remained out of reach . . .

Critics of Trump’s decision to go to war contend that his impulse to go big masks the weakness of his negotiating position despite the U.S. military’s dominance. . . . Tehran has succeeded simply by surviving the onslaught and has gained leverage by taking control of the Strait of Hormuz. As a result, Trump has been unable to convert tactical success on the battlefield into any lasting diplomatic or political achievement. None of his original war goals has been met, and the pressure to get a deal done is arguably now greater for Trump than it is for Iran, given the war’s broad unpopularity in the United States and the approaching midterm elections.

Every attempt to seal a deal has expanded the list of issues or created new wrinkles that prevent progress. What began as a narrow negotiation to end the conflict has become a grab bag of objectives: constrain Iran’s nuclear program and destroy its highly enriched uranium, reopen shipping through the strait, achieve a durable cease-fire in Lebanon, reassure Persian Gulf monarchies that they can count on U.S. protection, and, if possible, reshape the political map of the Middle East through new alliances with Israel.

The likely result is not another “forever war” of the sort that Trump has repeatedly condemned, but a “forever limbo,” where all sides involved have sufficient incentive to stay at the table but not enough to make binding commitments.

Inside the White House, Trump oscillated between impatience and theatrical self-confidence. He told advisers repeatedly that he wanted a deal bigger than President Obama’s 2015 nuclear agreement and broader than the initial round of Abraham Accords. He also made clear that he did not want to own the failure of negotiations. The longer the process dragged on, the more the competing impulses pulled him in different directions.

He wanted the conflict over. But he had become irritated by comparisons between the emerging framework and the Obama-era agreement, which set restrictions and time limits on Iran’s nuclear-development program. Administration officials said Trump repeatedly complained that critics were calling his team’s draft agreement a weaker version of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which he had spent years attacking and tore up in his first term.

At the same time, Trump grew wary of Iran’s calls for relief from international sanctions that could generate a financial windfall for Tehran. Trump has long complained about the “pallets of cash,” according to advisers, a reference to the $1.7 billion that flowed to Iran after the 2015 pact. Rubio told the Senate committee yesterday that Iran had to get rid of the enriched uranium and that the move would not lead to sanctions relief for Iran or any other financial incentives.

But the bottom line, Rubio said, was the need to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. That, like everything else involved in the talks, is harder than it might sound. To restore sufficient security and trust for shipping to return to prewar levels—about 135 ships a day—would require a major effort by the U.S. Navy, perhaps along with other nations, to clear mines laid by Iran. Shippers also need to feel confident that Iranian drones, missiles, and fast boats won’t threaten them. Only if those things happen, and the U.S. Navy lifts its blockade, would insurance companies reduce their rates for transit.

Yet Trump remains determined to secure a settlement he can portray as a legacy-making win. . . . As Trump heads into the summer, with events planned for America’s 250th birthday and the World Cup, it is hard to see him dedicating more time than he is now to extricating the United States from the war he started at the end of February. He may be content to simply wait rather than do a deal that invites unflattering comparisons to one that already existed—and which didn’t come at the cost of 13 U.S. service members and at least 1,700 Iranian civilians, tens of billions of dollars, the depletion of U.S. munitions stockpiles, and a global energy crisis.