*** 6/15/26 - Fred Kaplan - Trump Says the Deal With Iran Is Complete. Not So Fast.- This “deal” is more like concepts of a deal.............
Buzz Sawyer
Is Complete. Not So Fast.
This “deal” is more like concepts of a deal.
By Fred Kaplan
June 15, 2026
President Donald Trump proclaimed on Sunday, “The Deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran is now complete,” which wasn’t quite true for a few reasons.
First, what the United States and Iran agreed on wasn’t a deal but, as officials later put it, a “framework” of a deal. Second, what’s inside the frame is still very uncertain. Third, Iran subsequently announced that even this—formally known as a “memorandum of understanding”—would not be signed until Friday.
It seems that Trump was eager to announce whatever progress he had in mind to coincide with his birthday—which he was celebrating Sunday—just before flying off to the summit with his G7 colleagues, which he did shortly afterward, so that his failure to end the war in Iran would not be an issue.
The war still isn’t over—at best, Trump can boast of a 60-day ceasefire and the opening of the Strait of Hormuz—but he can act as if it is, and as if he is in control.
“I hereby fully authorize the toll-free opening of the Strait of Hormuz,” he further wrote in his announcement of “the Deal,” adding, “Ships of the World, start your engines. Let the oil flow!” As if this is up to him, when, in fact, as far as anyone could tell on Monday, Iran remains in control of the strait, and in any case Trump does not.
American and Iranian officials publicly agree on a few things, none of them trivial, though not all that meaningful either: a ceasefire, the opening of the strait, the end of the U.S. blockade, and the start of negotiations—to last no longer than 60 days—of all remaining issues, including Iran’s nuclear program, Western sanctions of Iran’s economy, and the U.S. release of billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets.
But the two sides differ in the details on all of these issues, and the details are, in the end, all that matters.
If they can resolve these differences over the next 60 days, this will be a remarkable achievement. If they cannot, then it will be just another blip in a decades-long confrontation, which Trump’s decision to go to war on Feb. 28—and his failure to convert its massive physical destruction to any strategic gain—has only intensified, mainly to Iran’s advantage.
The differences between the two sides are, for the most part, immense.
First, the ceasefire applies not only to the war in Iran but also to Israel’s war against Hezbollah in Lebanon—which the Iranians see as two theaters of the same conflict. A big source of tension here is that Israel was not party to the negotiation, and its top officials say they won’t be bound by any resulting accord. Trump reportedly screamed, “You’re fucking crazy!” at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for launching another attack on Lebanon Sunday, accusing him of trying to sabotage the peace. In a phone interview with the New York Times, Trump slammed Netanyahu as “a very difficult guy”—while praising Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping for staying out of the Iran war (though they actually haven’t: Putin has supplied Iran with intelligence about U.S. radar sites, while Xi has continued to fund Iranian oil). Netanyahu would be wise to hold his fire, at least as long as U.S.-Iranian talks continue, but if Hezbollah exploits the pause by firing missiles at Israel, he will almost certainly fire back.
Second, it is unclear whether the Strait of Hormuz reverts to an international waterway—the transit for a quarter of the world’s seaborne oil—or whether it remains under the control of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard. The deal, such as it is, allows ships to enter and exit the strait toll-free for 60 days—but after that, who knows.
It is also worth noting that the Strait of Hormuz was a free waterway—not at all under Iran’s control—before Trump and Netanyahu launched their ill-considered war three and a half months ago. The single best outcome of the agreement announced Sunday—the one that will have the biggest effect on the global economy, at least for a while—is a mere return to the prewar status quo. This will be widely seen as a favor granted by Iran, not as a victory won by Trump.
Third, except for the fact that there will be negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, there is no agreement about the outcome of those talks. Months ago, Iranians offered to suspend enriching more uranium for five years—something they had never offered to do. Trump insisted they had to stop for 20 years; U.S. officials now say he might agree to 15 years.
It’s also unclear, from published reports, whether Iran is offering to suspend all enrichment for five (or however many) years—or whether they insist on enriching at a level of 3.67 percent purity (the level allowed by the Obama-era nuclear deal—way lower than for a weapon). Either way, Iran insists on its right—as enshrined in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which it signed—to enrich uranium at low levels. Trump has wavered on the issue. Iranians have also said they would agree, in principle, to mix down or export their highly enriched uranium (they have about 1,000 pounds of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity) so that it is no longer anywhere near weapons-grade purity. Trump wants the U.S. to take hold of the uranium, something the Iranians are unlikely to allow.
Even if the two sides reach agreement on the basic elements of a nuclear deal, this is complicated stuff: the timing and methods of dismantlement, the terms of inspection, the penalties for violations. It took President Barack Obama’s team of experts, along with emissaries from five other countries, 20 months to draft the 157 pages of the 2014 Iran nuclear deal. Trump scuttled that agreement, calling it the worst treaty ever negotiated. He desperately wants to avoid any comparisons of his Iran deal with Obama’s. Yet that will be hard. In his first term, Trump talked about negotiating a “better” deal but didn’t even attempt to do so. (Clearly, he hoped the resumption of sanctions would topple the regime.) Now that he’s trying, he might find—though he will never publicly admit—that his critique was unfounded.
Fourth, and perhaps most concerning, Iran is demanding that any deal include the lifting of all sanctions, the release of all frozen assets, and the funding of repair for war damage. At the moment, Iran says it wants $12 billion as a precondition for even starting negotiations—and another $12 billion as a precondition for signing a deal at the end of the talks. Trump has said release of funds depends on whether Iran agrees to his terms for a deal and, in the meantime, behaves well.
This could be the deal-killer. Trump’s most caustic complaint about Obama’s nuclear deal is that it handed Iran $1.7 billion. Trump has described this payment as a secret bribe—when in fact it was a public release of Iran’s assets. The U.S. had frozen the assets when it discovered covert Iranian nuclear facilities that violated the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Obama therefore unfroze the assets when, as part of the nuclear deal, Iran dismantled those facilities. Trump might find it too mortifying to hand Iran 10 to 20 times as much money as Obama did, even though it would be for the same purpose.
One problem underlying the multiple dilemmas is that both Trump and the Iranian leadership believe they have won this war and, perhaps even more, feel the need to be regarded—by their own citizens and by the rest of the world—as the winners. In other words, neither sees much need to compromise. This is especially true of the Iranians. Trump says he will resume bombing Iran if the talks fall apart; given how many times he has threatened to do this, the Iranians have good reason to dismiss it as a bluff. By contrast, Iran could quite credibly threaten to shut down the Strait of Hormuz again, and to resume churning out missiles and enriching uranium—with many doubting that Trump, or anyone else, would do anything about it.
Related From Slate
Fred Kaplan
Trump Hasn’t Shed His Biggest Delusion About Iran
Read MoreThere are three more obstacles on this diplomatic path. First, Trump still doesn’t seem to know what this war has been about. Most recently, he has emphasized that the sole goal is to keep Iran from building a nuclear weapon. But he has also said that Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium is so deeply buried in a granite-filled mountain—thanks to last June’s Operation Midnight Hammer bombing raid—that it’s no longer a danger. He told the Wall Street Journal on Sunday, “We’ll get the nuclear dust”—his term for stored uranium—“later on when we’re ready to in and do it,” but “there’s no rush,” as it’s “harmless.”
That being the case, why not just stop the war altogether? And why did he start it?
The second obstacle is Trump’s negotiators. Before the war started, he sent his usual duo of diplomatic emissaries, son-in-law Jared Kushner and fellow real-estate tycoon Steve Witkoff, both of whom knew nothing about Iran or nuclear-weapons technology. (An official with the International Atomic Energy Agency briefed them once on why it wasn’t necessary to ban uranium enrichment, that low levels would keep Iran from building a weapon, but they either ignored this directive or didn’t understand it.) The new round of talks will be headed by Vice President J.D. Vance, who also has no experience in this sort of thing. A few weeks ago, he added one Middle East specialist to the team, but that’s all. Meanwhile, Iran’s team consists of experienced negotiators with knowledge of the technology—and, from observation, Trump-era American politics.
Which leads to the final obstacle: the brand of American politics that Trump has created. A successful deal will have to give Iran something—most of all money and the right to enrich some uranium at some point. Trump’s base and many politicians in his party will fiercely oppose both of those things—mainly because, for the past decade, Trump has told them to do so and has associated both concessions to their dread enemy, Obama.
If Trump wins a deal with Iran, he may lose at home. If he doesn’t obtain a deal from Iran, he will lose at home as well—along with his reputation as a master of “the art of the deal.” The irony is that Trump has witnessed the trap that so many presidents have fallen into by launching a war in the Middle East. And now Trump has fallen into the same trap—and one with even fewer paths for escape.