The president will feel criticisms from this group most keenly.
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It practically became a joke on social media: an almost daily announcement by U.S. President Donald Trump that a deal with Iran to end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz was near—often suspiciously timed just before markets opened—followed a few hours later by denials on both sides and a return to the status quo. In fact, it happened so often that one journalist, the source of many of these reports, was described by another as “the boy who cried ‘Iran deal.’”
Nonetheless, a deal, or the concept of a deal, does finally appear to be here—one that ends the military operation on all fronts as well as the U.S. naval blockade on Iran. Despite the lack of detail, there is little doubt that such an agreement is better than not having an agreement. Yet, as Trump has attempted to extricate the United States from his unwise war with Iran—and finally seems to have managed it—the loudest, most vocal critics are likely to be those who talked him into it in the first place.
It practically became a joke on social media: an almost daily announcement by U.S. President Donald Trump that a deal with Iran to end the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz was near—often suspiciously timed just before markets opened—followed a few hours later by denials on both sides and a return to the status quo. In fact, it happened so often that one journalist, the source of many of these reports, was described by another as “the boy who cried ‘Iran deal.’”
Nonetheless, a deal, or the concept of a deal, does finally appear to be here—one that ends the military operation on all fronts as well as the U.S. naval blockade on Iran. Despite the lack of detail, there is little doubt that such an agreement is better than not having an agreement. Yet, as Trump has attempted to extricate the United States from his unwise war with Iran—and finally seems to have managed it—the loudest, most vocal critics are likely to be those who talked him into it in the first place.
Even though it took two months of an uneasy cease-fire to get here, both sides had incentive to try to push toward an agreement. For the United States (and the global economy), strategic reserves and other mitigation measures have kept oil prices moderate. But these measures would have become less effective over time, causing costs and inflation to rise further. The same is true for the Iranian economy, which has done remarkably well—especially considering the bombing and the U.S. blockade of Iranian oil exports—but which would likely have only suffered more as time passed.
The deal struck over the weekend is bare-bones, a memorandum of understanding that does not in and of itself negotiate any nuclear questions. Instead, the MOU is focused on reopening the Gulf and Hormuz and lifting the U.S. blockade. It is unclear whether Iran will impose some kind of tolling system once control is transferred back. The details around the timing of sanctions relief and the unfreezing of Iranian assets are also still unclear.
Yet there’s no way to argue that this is a good deal for the United States. This is particularly true if the MOU unfreezes Iranian assets without any actual progress on nuclear questions, essentially trading U.S. concessions for a return to the prewar status quo in Hormuz. At the same time, though, this is still likely the best deal possible. Iran has successfully resisted U.S. military and economic pressure far better than assumed prior to the conflict, and in exercising their control over the Strait of Hormuz, the Iranians have managed to create enormous leverage in return.
Indeed, Vice President J.D. Vance has claimed the agreement with Iran has the potential to “fundamentally transform the Middle East for the next 50 years” and that it will ensure Tehran “will never have a nuclear weapon.” Such language in the absence of specifics seems unconvincing and will do little to persuade critics; in practice, the outcome will almost certainly prove substantially worse than the Obama-era nuclear deal torn up by the first Trump administration.
As a result, the White House has faced criticism from Democrats in Congress and in the media. It’s hardly undeserved: The whole war has been a fiasco, an unnecessary military conflict that has claimed 13 American lives, cost more than $70 billion by some estimates, pushed consumer inflation to 4.2 percent, and left the United States in a worse diplomatic position than previously. Democrats will also not shrink from pointing out that the war has vindicated the 2015 nuclear deal as a necessary compromise; it turns out that—even with open war—a better deal could not easily be achieved. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, for instance, denounced the president for “recklessly” ripping up the nuclear deal.
Democrats will have plenty of opportunity to air these criticisms. As a matter of law, Congress reserves the right to review and approve the terms of any deal related to Iran’s nuclear program. Debates about the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act were heated and unpleasant back in 2015. One can only imagine what they will look like today.
For the White House, however, the most painful protests are likely to continue coming from those who pushed for the war in the first place—and who continue to oppose any settlement. “No deal is better than a bad deal,” Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies proclaimed on X last week. On Sunday, after the agreement was announced, Dubowitz urged waiting for more information “before rushing to judgment—and before swallowing the spin from Tehran, Islamabad, Doha or, to be fair, Washington.” U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, meanwhile, advocated for sending troops to take Iran’s Kharg island as a “game changer” in negotiations last week. (On Sunday, he expressed concern that Iran and Trump’s team did not seem to be on the same page regarding the former’s nuclear program.) Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen has argued that any deal that leaves the regime in Tehran in power is unacceptable. Trump “does not need a deal!” Thiessen wrote on X last week. “Finish the target list, open the strait and declare victory!”
Even assuming that the agreement announced on Sunday sticks, these arguments sound a bit like the old adage “Real communism has never been tried.” These voices, after all, are the architects of Trump’s first-term “maximum pressure” approach to Iran, which did not yield a deal. They are the architects of Trump’s second-term war on Iran, which yielded neither a deal nor the collapse of the regime.
Yet they are the loudest critics, condemning the deal with Iran even before it was struck as weak and unnecessary and whose criticisms—voiced prominently on Fox News and elsewhere—will be felt most keenly by the president.
One does not expect introspection from this White House and certainly not from the president himself. But after Trump and his officials spent months attacking anyone who dared to stick their neck out and suggest that this war was a poor course of action, including administration insiders, it should perhaps give them pause to see how their fair-weather friends among the Iran hawks will turn on the White House the instant it threatens to deviate from their preferred policy.
The people who led the president up the garden path to war are blaming him for ending it. Will the details of this agreement reveal that Trump has finally had the courage to defy them?
This post is part of FP’s ongoing coverage. Read more here.
Emma Ashford is a columnist at Foreign Policy and senior fellow with the Stimson Center’s Reimagining U.S. Grand Strategy Program. She is also an adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown University and the author of Oil, the State, and War. X: @EmmaMAshford
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