When president Barack Obama signed a deal with Iran in 2015 to limit its nuclear enrichment programme for a decade, the US agreed to release $1.7bn in frozen Iranian assets as part of that package – while there were mistrust from many that Iran would comply, it was seen as a small price to slow down the spectre of a nuclear-armed Iran.
Donald Trump, however, felt different. For more than a decade, he has regularly attacked Obama for his “terrible deal”, which he ripped up early in his first presidency. At rallies, press conferences and almost any other opportunity that arises, Trump attacked Obama for the “sad, disgusting” spectacle of paying a “ransom”.
Returning $1.7bn of Iran’s own money in exchange for delaying nuclear enrichment was a price Trump was unwilling to pay. This was one of the President’s most consequential temper tantrums: there are those who claim that as a result of his decision to abandon the deal, Iran resumed enriching uranium.
Trump launched major air strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities in 2025, which he claimed – falsely – had “completely and totally obliterated” their enrichment capabilities. The need to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities was the stated reason for the joint US-Israeli war on Iran, launched at the end of February. Needless to say, the contradiction was never remotely acknowledged by the White House.
Now, supposedly, the US President is close to a deal to end the war that he started. This is something we’ve heard many times over the last few weeks, but this time independent observers insist that this one is real. The problem for Donald Trump is that it is such a spectacular admission of failure that even Republican politicians cannot help but notice.
The war on Iran was launched on the premise of ending Iranian nuclear enrichment, and Trump repeatedly claimed it might also lead to regime change. The deal Trump is about to sign appears to do nothing immediate on either front.
Not only is Iran’s regime still in control of the country, its grip is tighter than ever – internal dissent has faded away in the face of an exterior threat, and the US has even helped Iran manage the transition of power from the elder and ailing Ayatollah Khamenei to his hardliner son with minimal instability, by killing the former and forcing Iran to pick a successor under pressure.
Iran and the US could not get anywhere close to an agreement on what to do with its nuclear material, so supposedly, the two sides will work this out over the next 60 days. Few experts believe any real progress will be made over that time.
Why was Trump so desperate to sign a peace deal – desperate enough to miss his own son’s wedding over the weekend – that delivers none of his goals for the war? Put simply, he needs to solve the catastrophic problem that his own war created: the Strait of Hormuz absolutely had to be reopened, before the global economic consequences get any worse. Republicans are already likely to face a battering in the midterms, but if gas prices hit $8 that could escalate to total wipeout.
If Trump’s deal is finalised in the next few days, the Strait of Hormuz will reopen, global oil and gas will finally flow again, and the world economy can start its stumbling recovery from a self-inflicted disaster – but it will come at a price.
Iran is getting a lot of what it wants: the peace deal will cover Israel’s operations in Lebanon, and involve a total lifting of the US naval blockade of its ports. In exchange, it will reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and has promised not to levy tolls on maritime traffic transiting the naval passage.
The price it has extracted for that is huge: the terms of the deal are believed to include an agreement to unfreeze $25 billion of Iranian assets – a massive financial windfall for a major US adversary.
In other words, Donald Trump has spent a decade lambasting Barack Obama for paying Iran $1.7 billion to suspend its nuclear programme. He is now about to unfreeze $25 billion for Iran in return for, in effect, barely anything. The author of the Art of the Deal is about to sign what might be the worst peace deal in US political history.
Trump has an amazing propaganda machinery behind him. He has armies of advisors and influencers willing to lie for him, he has millions of social media followers who hang on his every word, and he has the Fox News media empire on his side.
But even this kind of infrastructure only goes so far. Some things cannot be spun. Trump has not accomplished his goals for the war, but he has massively depleted the USA’s stockpiles of weapons and spent billions of dollars.
Iran now has effective control of one of the world’s most important shipping lanes, newfound confidence and a new administration, and will have $25 billion to spend. Some things can’t be spun: Trump started a war, and he lost. Bigly.
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