The Disappearing Reappearing Iran Deal

National Review Online

Monday, May 25, 2026

 

In response to hawkish critics of the reported outlines of a memorandum of understanding with Iran, President Trump said he doesn’t cut bad deals. Well, okay, but how about middling deals after an adversary seizes a strategic asset that we haven’t managed to take back?

 

Negotiations remain in flux and are the subject of leaks and counter-leaks, but reports indicate that the U.S. and Iran have been closing in on a deal to trade our blockade of Iran for a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, with a continuation of the cease-fire for 60 days to allow more time for nuclear negotiations.

 

The U.S. is saying that Iran is making commitments to give up its highly enriched uranium and suspend enrichment for some period of time, but the Iranians aren’t confirming this, and they’d have every incentive to string a second phase of negotiations out as long as possible. If there is an initial deal in the coming days, the most certain result would be a lifting of the dueling U.S. and Iranian blockades, while everything else would be a jump ball.

 

The critics of this framework are correct that with our blockade lifted and Trump clearly reluctant to restart bombing, we’d lose crucial leverage over Iran. This would especially be the case if we give the Iranians any sanctions relief up front. We’d be going from “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER” to TBD on the crucial nuclear issues.

 

The problem is that once Iran took effective control of the strait and we weren’t willing to undertake a complex, protracted military action to reestablish freedom of navigation, Tehran had a significant strategic chit to play. And so we are now using our blockade to try to force a return of the Strait of Hormuz to the status quo ante. Even that might be overly hopeful, since Iran has now proved that it can easily interrupt international commerce, and even if it formally agrees not to toll the strait, it may extract revenue in some other form.

 

Trump deserves credit for his willingness to take action to try to topple the regime or, failing that, end its nuclear program. But this operation was beset by overly optimistic assumptions from the beginning. Trump seems to have believed that killing Ayatollah Khamenei would end the regime or produce a more pliable leadership. When that didn’t happen, the hope was that a punishing air campaign against Iranian military and industrial capacities would make Tehran buckle, and when that also didn’t happen, we were stuck.

 

The Pentagon and the more boosterish supporters of the war tended to recite all the targets we had hit, as though this equaled strategic success, when it didn’t necessarily connect to such bigger objectives as toppling the regime, getting Iran to agree to end its nuclear program, or (after the war had started) reopening the strait.

 

We degraded Iran’s arsenal of missiles and its capacity to build more but also depleted our own stocks, which has probably played into Trump’s reluctance to start the shooting war again.

 

On top of this, Trump did nothing to make the case for the war beforehand, when he should have sought congressional authorization for it. That the war had limited political support from the outset has clearly constrained the president, who has conducted the war with an eye on high gas prices and the conflict’s persistently poor polling.

 

Much depends on the details of any eventual deal; aware of discontent among his pro-war supporters, Trump has said he’s in no rush to sign anything.

 

Even in the worst case, Iran is going to end up in a reduced position from October 6, 2023. Its proxies have been devastated; much of its nuclear infrastructure has been wrecked; and its industrial plants have been hit hard, when its economy was already in crisis prior to the war. But whatever sanctions relief or revenue from the strait that it gets will be poured into rebuilding. Meanwhile, the regime has to assume it can wait Trump out, hoping that anti-war Democrats win in 2026 and that any presidential successor in 2028 won’t be willing to risk open conflict once again.

 

If an eventual deal is unsatisfactory, it won’t be because the president’s negotiating skills are lacking but because we weren’t able or willing to set the military conditions for successful diplomacy, most importantly by failing to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.