Agreement with U.S. facing ‘skepticism’ and some ‘opposition’ in Iran
Center Left
President Trump says the U.S. and Iran have signed an agreement that opens the Strait of Hormuz and starts talks on Iran’s nuclear program. NBC’s Gabe Gutierrez, Courtney Kube, Keir Simmons, Matt Bradley and Brian Cheung report on the reaction to the preliminary agreement and the next steps in the negotiations.
Former Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) had nothing but contempt for the new reports of President Donald Trump's memorandum of understanding to end the Iran war he started — noting on MS NOW's "Deadline: White House" Monday that he is leaving the United States and its allies in a considerably worse position than they were before, and even Republicans aren't rushing to celebrate it."So we're not even going to have a conversation about the nuclear program until we've removed all of our leverage points," noted anchor Nicolle Wallace. "What, if anything, is America getting?""Not much," said McCaskill bluntly.First of all, she noted, "the only thing that Donald Trump has done here is kind of solve a problem he caused," since he was the one who escalated hostilities against Iran in the first place, and "now they're trying to pretend that he's putting out a fire that he didn't start."Additionally, McCaskill continued, even Trump loyalists like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) are reserving judgment for the time being. "The fact that Lindsey is expressing doubts tells you all you need to know about how, really, well, I was going to use a bad word here. This deal is it's really bad. It's not a deal."The biggest insult of all, she continued, is to the military."At one point in time, we had military leadership that was strong enough to advise presidents in a meaningful way," said McCaskill. "We were seen as almost invincible in the world because of the strength of our military and its leadership. This administration is ruining the credibility of our military around the world. They are making us less safe by what they have done, because now there's a whole lot of folks out there that go, wait a minute, they can't manage a military the size of Iran?""No wonder Xi and Putin are high-fiving," McCaskill lamented, adding that these two rival leaders "can't believe" Trump sidetracked American power so badly at moments when they have their own ambitions. "This is nutty foreign policy. It makes us weak. It makes it dangerous for America. And it does permanent damage to our standing in the world and the standing of our military." - YouTube youtu.be
President Donald Trump has touted the framework to end his war with Iran as a great deal for the American people, and he and his officials have insisted Iran won't "get a dime" until they follow through on their obligations. But new reporting suggests Iran has already received money under the table.According to a report from Israel Hayom, a month ago, the Trump administration secretly approved a deal where Qatar transferred cash to Iran in exchange for a promise of safe passage for Qatari ships through the Strait of Hormuz.This clandestine deal "dovetailed with Doha's interest in opening a direct channel of communication with Tehran, which began to tighten after the ceasefire. Qatar, fearing a renewed Iranian attack on its facilities after one of its gas installations was attacked during the war, sought to buy security quiet," said the report. It also came as the U.S. was desperate to get traffic moving through the Strait, as the shutdown of the critical shipping artery has disrupted world oil exports.The reporting instantly provoked an explosive reaction from social media commenters."CORRUPT," wrote former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), a former lieutenant colonel in the Air National Guard."Bloody hell — US colluded with Qatar and Iran to undermine its own blockade. This is nuts," wrote Dr. Nafeez Ahmed, a British reporter with the Byline Times."I believe it. The lies and spin have been since day one," wrote podcaster Peter Grandich. "But as long as the stock market remains up and family and friends make billions, to heck with the long-term implications."
On the Big Take podcast, Sarah Holder and Bloomberg’s National Security Editor, Nick Wadhams, discuss the US-Iran ceasefire deal and how Israel’s fight with Iran’s proxies fits into the equation. (Source: Bloomberg)
Tensions have never been higher between President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over how to end the war they started together, threatening the viability of a U.S.-Iran peace deal signed over the weekend. Trump is claiming victory in cutting off the Islamic Republic’s pathway to a nuclear weapon, while the deal also reopens…
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under fire from even his own allies who slammed the current US-Iran peace deal as a wreck that fails the needs of the Jewish state.
Since it was announced on Sunday that the U.S. and Iran had struck a peace deal, experts have found no shortage of shortcomings in the agreement. Now, reporters and Republican lawmakers are pointing out that confusing aspects of the deal may not only provide Iran with a major gift, but represent a major betrayal of President Donald Trump’s own much-vaunted policies regarding the adversary. This is according to Punchbowl News senior congressional reporter Andrew Desiderio in response to an assertion by Politico senior foreign affairs correspondent Nahl Toosi. After listening in on Trump officials’ call regarding the Iran deal, Toosi declared he was “in some ways more confused now than before.” He went on to list several aspects of the call that didn’t add up, but one point stood out in particular. As he explained, “They do not seem to have a good grasp of U.S. sanctions law. They laid out the possibility of a $300 billion investment fund for Iran. And one said at one point that ‘the sanctions relief is not tied specifically to any particular conduct. It's tied generally to them behaving more appropriately, and obviously the thing that we care the most about is the nuclear program.’ But sanctions are specific to particular conduct.”In other words, Trump officials claim that, in order to pay Iran $300 billion — the legality of which depends on the reduction of sanctions — it is going to relieve sanctions based on the vague concept of good behavior rather than specific actions. This is a problem, however, because the sanctions — which were set in place by Congress — are tied to specific actions. So the White House’s claims in this regard are either illegal or nonsensical. And according to Desiderio, it gets even more muddled as “many Republicans have pointed out to me that this type of sanctions relief likely requires the IRGC to be de-listed as a terrorist organization under U.S. law. As someone who covered the Rob Malley-led Senate briefings in 2022, not even the [former President Joe] Biden admin was willing to do this.”This refers to the Islamic Republican Guard Corps, the nation’s top military body, which has been listed as a terror group since Trump deemed it so in 2019. Such a designation raises restrictions on what kind of resources can be provided to it. For Trump to backtrack on this policy — a move his administration bragged about vocally at the time — not only suggests the failure of his foreign policy, but opens the Iranian regime to trade and support it’s been denied for nearly a decade while lending it greater political legitimacy. The harms raised by de-listing the IRGC as a terror group are so widely understood that, as Desiderio noted, not even Biden — who overturned huge swaths of Trump’s foreign policy — would make the change. Furthermore, this move would not only clash with U.S. allies in the EU — which declared the IRGC a terrorist organization after it massacred somewhere between 6,000 and 35,000 protesters in January — but also contradict one of the administration’s other many suggested justifications for the war: protecting the Iranian people from its government. And as Toosi noted, there were several other contradictions revealed in the White House call. As he explained, “They seemed to act as if the US had won this confrontation, whereas the Iranians seem to think they have the upper hand.” Officials asserted that troops would remain in the region en masse even though the deal calls for reductions. And they suggested that the new Iranian leadership was eager to give up nuclear capabilities, claiming that it was the previous Supreme Leader who had held up such a plan, which is the opposite of what most analysts believe. Then there was their seeming total ignorance regarding the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), otherwise known as the Iran Nuclear Deal, which Obama struck, then Trump tanked. “They said ‘one of the really cool things and interesting things about this entire process is that we actually have a direct relationship with a number of people at the highest levels of the Iranian government. That really hasn't happened in 47 years of our relationship with Iran,'” posted Toosi. “This is not a huge thing, but it suggests they haven't really done their research on US-Iran relations. (See: JCPOA talks.)...Why do I suspect they haven't really studied the JCPOA and Iran-US history? Because of statements like this: ‘If you go back to the JCPOA, the Supreme Leader just doesn't sign these agreements.’ But nobody signed the JCPOA. It was a political arrangement, not a signed accord.”
U.S. and Iranian officials said the deal included a 60-day cease-fire to pave the way for negotiations toward a final peace agreement and talks on Iran’s nuclear program.
