The negotiations are a stark symbol of the president’s failure. But any agreement is better than a stupid, endless war.
President Donald Trump stands in the ring after Justin Gaethje defeated Ilia Topuria in a lightweight title fight at UFC Freedom 250 on the South Lawn of the White House, Monday, June 15, 2026.
(Marc Schiefelbein / AP) When it comes to negotiating an end to the war, Donald Trump suffers from a serious case of premature proclamation.
The attack on Iran launched by Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in February disrupted the global economy, causing oil prices to soar, while completely failing in its stated goal of regime change. Voters widely and rightly view the war as an unmitigated disaster.
Aware of the political consequences of the war and eager to calm both the electorate and jittery markets, Trump has repeatedly promised since April that a rapid end to the fighting was imminent. According to CNN, Trump announced an imminent ceasefire no less than 38 times in the last two months.
Given the president’s lies on this and countless other topics, it was natural to be suspicious Sunday when, in his typical salesmanship in a Truth Social article, he announcement,
The agreement with the Islamic Republic of Iran is now concluded. Congratulations everyone! I hereby fully authorize the free opening of the Strait of Hormuz and, simultaneously, I authorize the immediate lifting of the U.S. naval blockade. Ships of the World, start your engines. Let the oil flow!
This message is not entirely true – the Strait of Hormuz is not ready to open immediately – but it falls into the category of wild exaggeration rather than outright deception. There has been a diplomatic breakthrough, and we do not need to rely on Trump’s pompous and often false words to verify it, since the Iranian government itself has asserted that he is ready to sign a “memorandum of understanding” (MOU) with the United States on Friday. The memorandum of understanding is expected to establish a ceasefire and establish a framework for negotiations on thorny unresolved issues such as Iran’s nuclear program.
There’s another reason why this impending ceasefire seems more serious than Trump’s previous fabrications: The deal’s staunchest opponents, including the Israeli government and its hawkish allies in the United States, are furious and are already working to sabotage the negotiations.
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On Sunday morning, Israel launched an attack in Lebanon that was widely seen as an attempt to derail the signing of the memorandum of understanding. Talk to AxiosAsset fumed”It shook things up. It delayed the signing by a few hours. It was supposed to be done by now.” The president added: “Why did Bibi have to have a fucking attack? I was so upset. I let him know. He has no fucking judgement. I let him know.”
Prominent American hawks, including Senator Lindsey Graham And radio host Mark Levinalso express their apprehension about the agreement. More bluntly, Mark Dubowitz, who heads the ultra-militarist think tank The Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, established plans to paralyze negotiations and prepare for a resumption of fighting:
Supplying energy markets. Rest and rearm the soldiers. Develop a plan to help the Iranians cripple the regime. Apply sanctions by exerting constant pressure. Don’t let yourself be played at the negotiating table. Test Tehran early. Give little. Demand results. Leave quickly. Hit harder.
Although the full text of the memorandum of understanding has not yet been published, hawks are right to be concerned. Given Iran’s military resilience and the stranglehold it now exerts on the global economy through its control of the Strait of Hormuz, the final negotiated deal will likely be filled with many concessions and far less threatening to Iran’s regional power than the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) negotiated by Barack Obama in 2015.
The New York Times reports that Israeli anger over the impending deal extends across the political spectrum. The newspaper quotes an “Israeli who was briefed on the Iran deal and requested anonymity to discuss diplomacy” who says the deal has the following problems:
There are no clear answers regarding the treatment of Iran’s stockpiles of enriched uranium, and not enough restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program, with the deal appearing to rely on Iranian goodwill.
Instead of creating the conditions for a collapse of the Iranian government, the deal would allow funds to begin flowing into its coffers.
The deal provides no clear mechanism to force Iran to end its support for its proxy forces. But that would mean suspending Israel’s campaign against Hezbollah, the militant group it is fighting in Lebanon.
If this Israeli version is accurate, then Trump’s Iran deal will constitute a major setback for US-Israeli hegemony in the Middle East. It will be tempting for some of Trump’s Democratic opponents to join Republican hawks and taunt the president for making a bad deal. This type of argument is already infiltrating centrist circles, notably among Michael McFaul, who served as U.S. ambassador to Russia under Barack Obama. On X, McFaul confessed shock that “Trump gives Tehran’s autocrats $25 billion to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.” New York Times columnist Nicolas Kristof filed a similar complaint that Iran receives “rewards for reopening the strait”. Kristof then speculated that Iran could “go the North Korean route by acquiring not only threshold status, but actual nuclear weapons.”
This kind of criticism risks fueling the hawkish illusions that led to the disastrous war. The truth is that Trump started a stupid and unnecessary war, which the United States lost decisively. The war proves that the United States and Israel have limited ability to contain Iran. The only alternative is therefore negotiation.
Instead of attacking Trump for not being militaristic enough, Democrats should follow the lead of Rep. Ro Khanna, who praised the negotiations even as he rightly noted that “the conditions appear no better than those obtained by Obama under the JCPOA almost a decade ago. America lost 14 valuable service members and wasted billions of dollars on this senseless enterprise.” In truth, conditions are likely to be worse. But even a bad deal is better than continuing a senseless war.
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Damn Lord Jeet Heer is national affairs correspondent for The nation and host of the weekly Nation podcast, Time of the Monsters. He also writes the monthly column “Morbid symptoms.” The author of Art lovers: the adventures of Françoise Mouly in comics with Art Spiegelman (2013) and Sweet Lechery: reviews, essays and profiles (2014), Heer has written for numerous publications, including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, The American perspective, The guardian, The New RepublicAnd The Boston Globe.