Negotiations with Iran, which were supposed to consolidate Donald Trump’s foreign policy victory, have exposed a serious internal political split in the United States. The memorandum concluded with Tehran came under fire from several flanks at once – from the Democrats to key figures in the president’s own camp. Even the president’s closest allies—from Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth to Republican hawks in the Senate—publicly or behind the scenes considered the announcement an excessive concession to Iran and a waste of accumulated leverage. With details – Kommersant correspondent in Washington Ekaterina Moore.
Negotiations between the United States and Iran, led by Vice President J.D. Vance, took place in Switzerland on Sunday, June 21. The meeting took place a few days after US President Donald Trump signed a memorandum that provides a 60-day period to determine the parameters of Iran’s nuclear program and reach a final agreement.
American media describe the last round of negotiations as very brief, noting a nervous start that was de facto derailed amid public threats from President Donald Trump and Tehran’s hard-line response.
But the main thing is that his entourage most of all did not like what the US President agreed on with the Iranian side.
Some of Trump’s closest team members, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, have expressed concerns about the agreement, Axios reported.
The publication did not provide details of their concerns.
Congress also had a difficult attitude towards the deal. As expected, the Democrats attacked the president. In particular, Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer lashed out, saying that “the United States is worse off because of Trump’s incompetence, ego, and failure to listen to the facts.”
But perhaps the most painful thing for Trump was the reaction of fellow party members. The Hill notes that statements from frustrated neocon senators ranged from scathing assessments of the agreement as “the worst foreign policy mistake in decades” to a document that was “out of step” with stated US goals and interests.
Key concerns among some of Trump’s closest allies on Capitol Hill are that the agreement provides Iran with significant economic recovery opportunities with minimal reciprocal concessions.
“I have concerns that parts of this deal are moving in the wrong direction,” Republican Sen. Tom Cotton, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told Fox News. He acknowledged that the president “deserves credit for leaving Iran weaker than it has been in decades.” But “we need to make sure we don’t squander the leverage we’ve built over six years.”
Other Republican senators made similar assessments, arguing that the deal provides Iran with immediate relief from oil revenues, as well as efforts to unfreeze $24 billion in Iranian assets and create a $300 billion Iranian reconstruction fund.
“History shows that handing over billions of dollars to theocratic zealots who want to destroy us is an exceptionally bad idea,” Texas neocon senator Ted Cruz was quoted as saying by Reuters. He also suspected that the president “is receiving bad advice and sending billions of dollars to Iran is a mistake.”
Another of Trump’s closest ally, Senator Lindsey Graham, said on Sunday that, in his opinion, the preliminary deal between the United States and Iran will “fail” and the next step will be new strikes on Iran.
“If the diplomatic route through the memorandum does not work, then we will have to go to war or some other form of coercion,” Graham said on CBS News. Graham suggested that if the deal fails, Trump will again “take control of the Strait of Hormuz by force,” and in response to Hezbollah’s actions against Israel in Lebanon, he will launch new strikes on Iran.
The Republican also criticized the creation of a $300 billion fund for the reconstruction of Iran. He previously compared it to “the Marshall Plan for post-war Germany while the Nazis remained in power.”
Another Republican, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Senator Roger Wicker, literally ridiculed the idea of creating a fund for Iran: it “would force payments to Iran under the 2015 Obama agreement (as part of the nuclear deal.— “Kommersant”) look like mere pennies.”
By the way, the position of one of the main architects of the “nuclear deal” Barack Obama, former national security adviser Susan Rice, was very close to the hawkish Republicans. Ms. Rice criticized Mr. Trump’s memorandum with Iran, calling the agreement “shallow” and “egregious” on ABC News because “too many concessions were given upfront in this shaky two-page memorandum of understanding.”
“I oppose this war because it was a stupid war, and it was obvious that by starting a stupid war, which all previous presidents have wisely avoided, you will end up with either bad or worse results,” Rice said. Moreover, in her opinion, “Iran has now realized that it can use the Strait of Hormuz to take us and the world economy hostage at any time.” She believes that with such an agreement, the administration “risks losing all its trump cards” and, although the memorandum ends the war, it leaves the United States in a worse position.
