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By the time this hits your inbox, President Trump will likely be speaking at the G7 where he is expected to take questions about the deal to end the Iran war, among other things. And while the admin still hasn't released anything concrete on the MOU, the details are starting to leak domestically. Bloomberg has seen the full 14-point draft, which is worth reading as this is probably closer to the real document that will be signed on Friday than the selective leaks coming out of Israeli and Iranian media. The gist is this: 

So there you have it. Iran can sell its oil immediately, there will be at least some sanction relief upfront, plus the carrot of a $300B reconstruction fund (somehow at least partially paid for by you and me, we can surely assume!), and we removed our singular point of leverage (the naval blockade) all before the nuclear issues are even negotiated. But keep telling me about Trump the Consummate Dealmaker.

It should not be difficult to see why so many people — and not just the typical Trump haters — see this as a complete capitulation. If you haven't been poring over conservative and Israeli media this week as I have, you might not know that this agreement is being treated like a steaming pile of crap from just about everyone outside the few MAGA true believers left who would make apologies for Trump if he killed their family dog. (Aside: to the Israelis ripping apart Trump for betraying them, maybe try some gratitude for everything he — and we — have done for you?)

I wish I had the naivete of some of the folks who have emailed in to tsk, tsk me that I should give it a chance because this will be the time we really do solve the Iran problem. Not the JCPOA, imperfect as it was, that Obama, John Kerry and others spent years of shuttle diplomacy hammering out that will be looked back upon as the best deal that could have been achieved at the time.

I hate to break it to these folks, but there will be no "final agreement" on Iran nukes. Even the CIA director is warning the White House that our intelligence suggests the Iranians aren't willing to make any of the concessions we've demanded, and that they'll just string us along in these negotiations. If you think we're gonna see some grand bargain in 60 days whereby Tehran agrees to hand over its enriched uranium and let in inspectors, etc. I have a bridge to sell you. If that does happen, I will eat crow on camera. Someone save this column to hold me to it.

It's not happening. This ceasefire and MOU are just both sides agreeing they don't want to endure the economic pain of the war anymore and to kick the can down the road on the hard stuff for some future negotiators to deal with. Trump is done with this whole thing. Just listen to how he's talking about the "nuclear dust" now: "You could make the case, why even bother? It's not very valuable stuff," he said yesterday. Just incredible. A few weeks ago they were talking about sending in US special forces to build a temporary airbase in the middle of the Iranian mountains to physically remove the material and fly it out of the country. Now it's "Eh, why bother? It's just highly enriched uranium. Not even that valuable!" They think you are stupid.

There are a lot of very angry people in my inbox this week, many pro-Israel conservatives who seem to be deflecting their anger with President Trump onto me for simply pointing out the ways in which he has, per usual, totally abandoned a core part of his base. Look, I get it. It must be difficult to wake up and realize that Trump will sell you up the river the moment you become a political or personal problem for him. Just ask literally any person or group who has ever allied themselves with this man. It always ends in the same way. Hung out to dry and humiliated as soon as you turn into a liability. Why would the pro-Israel right be any different? It's not like Donald Trump has some deep and abiding love for the Israeli people or the Zionist project of regional hegemony. Trump is, always has been, and always will be, a transactional guy with zero morals or ideology aside from his own political fortunes and personal enrichment. He got talked into doing a big favor for Netanyahu in fighting this war, got burned immediately, and now he's cutting bait. It really is that simple. 

I say all this hoping and praying they sign this agreement on Friday, by the way, and that it isn’t sabotaged. I don't want the war to continue. We have much bigger fish to fry at home, and I will be happy for Trump to move on from this morass. But that doesn't mean I am going to cheer on a deal to end a war that never should have been started to begin with. 

This is what gets me so riled up. The anti-war movement in America, to the extent it even exists anymore, never gets any credit for always being right. Whether it's the non-interventionist America First groypers on the right, or the old Vietnam-era peaceniks on the left... they never get recognition of being 100% right about every single US overseas military adventure. We never get any of the talking heads in the media saying, "you know what? Why is it that every time a president starts freelancing in the Middle East it goes sideways immediately? Maybe we should start listening to the people who always predict this, and learn from it?" Never. The neocons get to be wrong, time and time again, and still get plum jobs in a GOP White House, reelected to the Senate or a primetime gig on Fox News. The no-war lefties get nothing, ever, other than being called dirty hippies even though they've been on the right side of this issue for the last 25 years. Meanwhile, I will get diagnosed with TDS for pointing out the ways in which Trump utterly failed in all of his stated goals for this war.

None of this is to say Iran "won." But they certainly didn't lose, either. Their economy and currency are still a disaster (though we're about to help big time on that front with the sanctions relief and $300b in reparations). We bombed a ton of their infrastructure, probably set back the nuclear program some number of years. But all of that can be rebuilt. The point is that Iran won the battle of wills. And if you're new here, that is the only thing that matters in this neck of the woods. Tehran survived everything Washington threw at them. We killed their supreme leader, and their system of diffused power ensured the regime didn't collapse. They are built for this in a way we are not... and that is the big, messy, unfortunate lesson of these last four months. 

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Carlo Versano is Newsweek's Director of Politics and Culture. He has in-depth knowledge and experience covering a range of topics and stories over a 20-year career in the news business. Carlo joined Newsweek in 2024 after a stint at The Messenger. Before that, he was an Emmy-winning producer at NBC News. He is a graduate of the University of Richmond and the New School. You can get in touch with Carlo by emailing [email protected].

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"Israel's been fighting Hezbollah too long and too many people are being killed. You don't have to knock down an apartment house every time you're looking for somebody. There are a lot of people in those apartment houses, and they're not all Hezbollah."

—President Trump speaking at the G7 in France

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