President Trump pushed back hard on social media over the weekend against what he called losers, rhinos, and fools second-guessing a deal he said is still being negotiated, insisting the final agreement will either be great and meaningful or there will be no deal, and that it will be the exact opposite of the Obama-era JCPOA. The White House spokesman responded to former CIA Director Mike Pompeo’s public criticism of the emerging framework by telling him to shut his stupid mouth and leave the real work to the professionals.
Michael Rubin, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and director of policy analysis at the Middle East Forum, joined Dan Proft on Chicago’s Morning Answer to assess the deal speculation with thirty years of experience studying Iranian negotiations.
Rubin said opacity is not Trump’s friend in this situation. If the deal is genuinely good, there should be details the administration is willing to confirm publicly. Instead, the Iranian press is filling in those details. Nour News, which is closely affiliated with Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, has reported that the first step of the agreement involves the release of eleven billion dollars in frozen Iranian assets, with nuclear discussions to follow only after that payment. He said that structure is essentially the JCPOA model, cash first, nuclear concessions theoretically later. Iranian sources have also reported that the strait reopening involves a quota system controlled by Iran, with the Iranians hinting they would retain the ability to charge what they are calling environmental fees on transiting vessels. He acknowledged that the Iranian press has incentives to distort the reported details to generate domestic political pressure on Trump, but said when one party to a negotiation is being very specific and the other is saying nothing, the question of what the silent party has to hide becomes unavoidable.
He said the administration should also be deeply skeptical of the mediators it is relying on, particularly Pakistan and Qatar. His rule of thumb is that you never want a mediator that deep down wants you to lose. Pakistan hid Osama bin Laden for fifteen years. Qatar’s leadership is ideologically hostile to the United States. Turkey, another frequent intermediary, is among the most anti-American governments on earth. The fact that the administration is putting significant weight on what these intermediaries report about Iranian willingness to deal strikes people in the region as baffling.
On the question of why Trump might be inclined toward a deal that falls short of his stated objectives, Rubin took seriously the reporting by journalist Eli Lake in the Free Press that the United States is facing a significant shortfall of standoff weapons like the Army Tactical Missile System, which can target Iranian military facilities well outside the range of Iran’s anti-missile capabilities, while the shorter-range munitions that would be needed in their absence are more vulnerable to Iranian defenses. He said there is something to that concern but cautioned that when the United States systematically looks at worst-case scenarios and self-deters on that basis, it creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is not clear Iran has the offensive and defensive capacity being attributed to it. What is clear is that if the United States steps back, North Korea, China, and Russia will ensure Iran acquires those capabilities.
He dismissed as nonsense the story circulating in some circles that the original American plan had involved installing former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a replacement leader following regime decapitation, and that those plans were disrupted when Ahmadinejad was seriously wounded in early strikes. He said people claiming Ahmadinejad was under house arrest were contradicted by his continued attendance at meetings and public appearances, and that the entire story appeared to originate from Ahmadinejad’s own adversaries within the Iranian government playing the American press for fools, with the New York Times amplifying unnamed sources without the ability to independently verify anything.
On reopening the strait specifically, Rubin said the United States has two good options with a hornet’s nest: leave it alone entirely or get rid of it completely. Taking the middle road of sitting beneath it and lightly tapping it is the worst possible outcome, and he said that is essentially what American policy has been doing. He said the United States has the capability to take out the vessels capable of laying mines, to cut off Iran’s gasoline imports through its limited number of Persian Gulf port facilities, and to target the fuel depots that support its fast-boat operations without needing to hunt down every individual vessel. The problem is not capability but will, and the unresolved debate at the top of the Trump administration between negotiating with Iran and acting unilaterally has produced the worst-case outcome of stirring up the hornets without eliminating the nest.
On what happens to the region if Trump accepts a deal perceived as a concession, Rubin was bleak. He said Iran would immediately begin reconstituting its proxy networks, having now discovered that the Strait of Hormuz is an Achilles heel it can exploit in any future confrontation. The deal would be seen as an American defeat, would embolden the Iranians, and would demonstrate to every regional and global adversary watching that American resolve has limits. His most fundamental concern is structural: as far as the Iranians are concerned, any deal with Donald Trump is only as permanent as Trump himself. The moment he leaves office, the expectation is a return to square one, which means whatever temporary constraints any agreement imposes will be reversed by the next administration willing to offer better terms, as every administration since 1979 eventually has.