EVIDENTLY UTILISING THE Oval Office as a locker room, mixed martial arts fights were staged last weekend on the south lawn of the White House. The event, billed as UFC Freedom 250, was intended to celebrate the semi-quincentennial of the United States. It also happened to be President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday. One could be forgiven for asking which is most important to the MAGA faithful.
While a solid majority of us Americans, as shown by polls, did not appreciate cage fighting on what our civic religion teaches us is hallowed ground, it was a pretty spectacular production. Still, that the commander-in-chief views the UFC as in any way symbolic of or a testament to the values we are taught from a young age is disheartening. His predecessors on both sides of the aisle – such as his fellow Republican, George HW Bush, a genuine hero and patriot – must be turning in their graves.
The vulgarity of the proceedings was compounded by a participant shouting into a microphone: “Michelle Obama is a man!” That President Trump declined to condemn the nasty comment about the former First Lady, which is derived from nonsensical online conspiracy theories, immediately thereafter or since is disgraceful. Yet it is sadly typical.
The Iran mess
At any rate, a couple of days later, Trump and his Iranian counterpart electronically signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that purportedly will extend the current ceasefire and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The MOU is merely a page and a half long and contains 14 points. Without getting too deep into the weeds, let’s consider what it says, what is negotiable and what may flow from the MOU.
Initially, the obvious is worth noting. Everyone in the world, for a wide variety of reasons, should be praying that this will indeed represent the beginning of the end and the resumption of something approximating the status quo prior to the conflict. Disapproval of President Trump and opposition to this war should not cause anyone to dismiss out of hand the potential for better days ahead.
The MOU undeniably reads like an admission of defeat by the US. It looks as though Iran will receive hundreds of billions of dollars in frozen assets, that there will be an end to all US-imposed sanctions and that many US soldiers will withdraw from the region. Further, the relevant language in the MOU can be interpreted to the effect that Iran could impose an immensely lucrative “toll” on ships seeking to pass through the Strait of Hormuz in future.
But President Trump argues that, pursuant to the deal, Iran will not ever try to create nuclear weapons. He declares that the country’s military capacity has been obliterated. Additionally, he contends that more has actually been promised by the Iranians. Allegedly, these pluses for the US are not spelled out specifically to make it an easier sell for the Iran’s leadership. Whatever that means.
From his own perspective, he has to regard this privately as the off-ramp he has been furiously flailing around in search of. The Strait of Hormuz is slated to be up and running. Then, he is depending on a rapid decrease in the price of fuel, as well as in the cost of consumer goods, in concert with a surge in the markets. The latter seems to animate him most.
Yet the truth is manifest. The contents of the MOU amount to a worse situation for the US than before President Trump decided to strike out against the Iranian ruling class in an effort to duplicate the swift, successful mission in Venezuela. And what has to be especially infuriating to the bombastic New Yorker is that the just revealed terms are less advantageous for America than the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) worked out by the Obama administration with Iran in 2015.
Political miscalculation
To reiterate what I have said previously in this space, it is the single biggest mistake he has made in either of his stints as president. He has forfeited perhaps his greatest political strength: that his foreign policy was broadly consistent with his America First slogan and virulent criticism of “forever wars” in the Middle East. This messaging won over an unprecedented coalition of millions of unlikely supporters.
There are two massive variables at this juncture. Notwithstanding that the MOU is supposed to bind the allies of the US (Israel) and Iran (Hezbollah), will the beleaguered Benjamin Netanyahu, who needs instability to reign as long as possible to stave off an election he will lose and a prison sentence he may have to serve, comply?
The fact is that Netanyahu duped Trump into attacking Iran. As multiple media leaks demonstrate, Trump is beyond apoplectic with his so-called friend, whom he was apparently foolish enough to trust. Accordingly, and given all that is at stake, my suspicion is that he is conveying in quite threatening fashion that, if Israel violates the MOU, it will be subject to the direst of consequences from its very generous sponsor. Yet there is no guarantee Netanyahu will fall in line. Desperate men do desperate things.
Also, the MOU is only that, an MOU, and expires in 60 days. Will it precipitate a final agreement? If not, will Trump simply extend the deadline and continue to kick the can down the road indefinitely, as is his habit in other contexts? What impacts might that have? The answers here are unknowable.
The mood at home
There are a couple of wrinkles Trump will be cognisant of on the home front. Some congressional Republicans are reportedly outraged at the conditions of the MOU, viewing his acquiescence in them a near total surrender. He will be wagering that the unwavering fidelity of his devoted base will frighten off the detractors. The GOP is hugely reliant on their backing in the November elections.
The hope of Trump and his party colleagues must be that the vital cohort of swing voters will have short memories. If these women and men feel they have more purchasing power in the coming weeks and months, conservative candidates could get a boost.
Democrats have to watch that space extremely carefully and repeatedly assert that, despite what the president pledged on the campaign trail, he has not fixed inflation. He has exacerbated it.
And a war on Iran – in which American soldiers died, and 45 billion dollars of taxpayer money was spent, with little or no benefit being realised – was the quintessential fool’s errand.
In sum, the MOU between the US and Iran is less than 800 words, but an abundance of uncertainty emanates from it as talks commence in Switzerland. And uncertainty is the sole constant of Trump 2.0.
Larry Donnelly is a Boston lawyer, a Law Lecturer at the University of Galway and a political columnist with TheJournal.ie.