The San Antonio Spurs choked in historic fashion in game four of the NBA Finals last week, blowing a 29-point lead to lose the game and any chance of winning the championship. That choke, the worst in NBA Finals history, was nothing compared to the way the Trump Administration choked over the weekend, turning a historic victory and a chance for true peace in the Middle East into a humiliating defeat for no reason other than squeamishness and a desperation for a deal at all costs.
Looking at the terms of the deal, it’s hard to believe that Iran is the smaller - and evil - nation whose leaders were wiped out and whose army and navy were decimated. The deal treats Iran as the global superpower and the US as the minor power which sued for peace and ultimately surrendered.
It’s hard to even call this deal the JCPOA 2.0, because it establishes nothing about Iran’s illicit nuclear program. There are nebulous promises to deal with Iran’s stockpile of highly-enriched uranium and a laughable ‘promise’ from Iran to respect the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the exact promise Iran has been making and breaking for decades. There are no concrete steps, no enforcement mechanisms, no actual restrictions. All that is saved for further talks.
If Iran has only agreed to further talks about its nuclear program, what did it concede?
-Did it agree to diminish its ballistic missile program, which it used to attack not only Israel but many of its Arab neighbors over the last four months? No. The ballistic missile issue goes completely unaddressed.
-Did it agree to stop using terrorist proxies to wipe Israel off the map? No. It got the US to concede on Hezbollah’s right to murder Israelis with impunity.
-Did it agree to stop murdering and oppressing its own civilians? As if. Oppression and murder are the lifeblood of the regime, without which it would fall almost immediately.
So what did Iran agree to? It agreed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, something it already agreed to when the ceasefire was initially reached in April, and on which it already reneged.
In exchange for this one concession, something it was supposed to do under previous agreements, Iran received a complete American surrender. The US agreed to end its naval blockade of Iran, the one piece of leverage it still had, to reduce sanctions to the tune of 24 billion dollars, and to provide hundreds of billions in dollars for reconstruction. The economic war, the one thing that still gave hope that a world free from the threat of Iranian nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and terrorist proxies could result from this war, is over.
With this money, Iran will do exactly what it did a decade ago under the JCPOA, rebuild its nuclear program and spread terror and death around the world. All for nothing more than a promise to continue talking about its nuclear program.
There is no excuse for such a sham of a deal. The US has chosen to lose the war by telling Iran that it can do whatever it wants now that the Trump Administration has lost its nerve. There will be no more pressure to change its behavior and act like a civilized country. The military threat is no more, and the economic threat is likewise being erased. Iran will keep its nuclear program, keep funding and arming its proxies, keep murdering Iranians in the streets, all with America’s approval.
If Iran imposes tolls on the ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz, as it is threatening to do, the US will acquiesce like a vassal state instead of a superpower because ‘the deal’ will be more important than doing the right thing, just as it was for the Obama Administration. The most powerful military in human history has been rendered impotent by the administration’s lack of nerve.
It was always in America’s power to win this war easily. After inflicting so much damage and receiving so little in return, it could extended its campaign to Iran’s industrial base and dealt the death blow to the regime. It could have even defeated Iran without further action if it had kept up the blockade and the economic pressure. Instead the US chose surrender to the nation it had already defeated.
By agreeing to this farce of a deal, Trump has destroyed his legacy. American defeat and humiliation is now his legacy. Instead of ending the Iranian threat, he has ensured that America will never be in a position to do so again. Instead of acting decisively, the trait that made him effective as a leader, he has chosen to emulate the indecisiveness of Barack Obama and Joe Biden and to merely kick the can down the road.
After getting the US to end the economic war in exchange for nothing more than more talking, there is no hope that these further talks will yield anything more constructive. The US has no leverage at all, not economically and certainly not militarily. There is nothing with which to threaten Iran after Iran called America’s bluff time and time again since April 8. Iran now knows it can be as intransigent as it wants, and Trump will let in get away with anything and give it everything.
Centuries from now, historians will look back at Operation Epic Fury and wonder just how a superpower could win so decisively in six weeks of combat, and then turn around give up every gain and surrender to the weaker, supposedly defeated nation. They will wonder what was the point of fighting at all if this was the result and if the US was so desperate for a deal that achieved nothing for it and everything for Iran. They will wonder how history’s greatest choke happened.
Forget blowing a 29-point lead. The US was winning 100-0 and declared a forfeit.