Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.The details of Donald Trump’s ceasefire deal with Iran have now been released, and it’s exactly what we expected. Trump got nothing of any significance. And a surprising group of people are now admitting this—Trump’s MAGA allies. Some Fox News figures and right-wing media figures are taking apart the deal in surprisingly harsh terms. Meanwhile, Trump let out a few tirades today attacking Barack Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal, even though all indications thus far are that Trump has fared substantially worse than Obama did.We think the big story right now is this: everything we know right at this moment strongly suggests that the next stage of the negotiations with Iran will be even worse for Trump.We’re working through all of it with Sina Toossi, an Iran expert at the Center for International Policy. Sina, good to have you on.Sina Toossi: Hey, Greg, thanks so much for having me on.Sargent: So both sides have released the agreement. Here’s the short version. Strait of Hormuz reopened with no charge for passage, but that’s only for 60 days. U.S. blockade lifted—a victory for Iran. Iran also gets relief from sanctions. Iran reaffirms it won’t procure or develop nuclear weapons, which it has already said in many other instances. The U.S. is working with regional partners to open up $300 billion in reconstruction aid to Iran. Sina, what did the United States get here? And what do you make of this deal?Toossi: Yeah, so I think the most important thing is that this is not a nuclear deal. We’re already seeing comparisons to the Obama-era nuclear deal, the 2015 deal. This makes no nuclear obligations of Iran. That most critical issue has been deferred to this 60-day period of negotiations. And what this deal really is, is just a framework deal outlining the ostensible end of this war.And as part of this deal, the most important thing really is the U.S. lifting its blockade on Iran and Iran lifting its blockade on the Strait of Hormuz—this problem that did not exist before the war. But as part of that, Iran is actually getting upfront concessions. Most significantly, these oil waivers to sell oil during this period of negotiations, as well as access to its own frozen money that’s been frozen due to sanctions, as well as a region-wide ceasefire, including Lebanon. And these are major upfront concessions that Iran is now receiving as a result of this war.Sargent: Just to boil this down in really simple terms, basically what happened here is that Trump said, we’re opening up $300 billion in reconstruction aid to Iran, provided you meet a bunch of conditions later, but we are opening it up—in order to undo the mistake I made in launching this war in the first place and closing the Strait of Hormuz and bringing the global economy to its knees. Is that what happened?Toossi: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it straight up says that there’s this $300 billion investment fund. It’s worth being skeptical about whether that will actually materialize. But what Trump has agreed to right now is, yeah, on paper, such an investment fund is being created. And for a deal that was already on the table in the past that he left—and then he launched his dumb war and only created this big quagmire.Sargent: So let’s talk about the nuclear component for a second. As you pointed out, what it does is defer the discussion. But in the deal, there’s some text, not much. Iran agrees not to procure or develop nukes, but that is what it has always said. It said the same thing in the 2015 Obama nuclear deal. The deal now requires Iran to dilute its enriched material but doesn’t require it to ship the material out of the country—and that was in Obama’s deal, right? And so now the details on the constraints on Iran’s nuclear program have to be negotiated. Is that about the size of it? And what’s your take on all that?Toossi: Yeah, I think if this does lead to a nuclear deal, by all accounts—and this text also reinforces this—it’s going to look something similar to what Obama got. And what was actually on the table before this war, because Trump himself in his second term was engaged in nuclear negotiations with Iran. And in the middle of them, they launched surprise attacks on Iran, both last June and again in February.And in this February track, we actually had this British national security advisor who was there. And he himself said that the deal was basically at hand. And the Omani intermediary at this time said that it was at hand too. But yeah, basically the contours of this deal, much like the JCPOA, seem to be Iran accepting more intrusive transparency mechanisms, inspections mechanisms, committing to get rid of its large stockpiles of enriched uranium. So right now it has 60 percent enriched uranium. It’s agreed to dilute this within Iran—or at least that’s what the idea of this agreement is—as opposed to sending it abroad.
