A Bad Deal With Iran

By: Morton Klein

The Zionist Organization of American (ZOA) is extremely grateful to President Trump for all he has done to degrade Iran’s nuclear facilities and military capabilities in Operations Midnight Hammer and Epic Fury. He has done far more than any other U.S. president.

However, the pending deal with Iran is concerning. The deal appears to be an “agreement to negotiate,” which enables the Iranian regime to build up its military and terror arsenals while obtaining massive oil revenues. It also appears to allow the genocidal Iranian regime to remain in power and leave its nuclear and missile stockpiles in place, thus strengthening its 47-year war to destroy the U.S. and Israel, and even the West. 

The Trump administration has not revealed the deal’s full terms. We of the ZOA call on the administration to disclose the terms as soon as possible. But the little that we do know is deeply problematic.

President Trump stated on Truth Social that he is authorizing the immediate removal of the United States Naval blockade—the blockade that was strangulating Iran economically. It makes no sense for the U.S. to immediately ease its pressure on the Iranian regime without first obtaining the immediate removal of Iran’s nuclear stockpile, decommissioning Iran’s nuclear facilities, and destroying Iran’s deadly missile stockpile.

The deal’s apparent long ceasefire also only plays into the Iranian regime’s delaying tactics. We’ve repeatedly seen that “ceasefires” with the Iranian regime and its proxies mean “we cease and they continue to fire.”

Reports that the deal also includes a ceasefire in Lebanon are also extremely concerning given that Hezbollah will continuously violate the ceasefire and use the ceasefire as a time to regroup and rearm. President Trump’s demand that Netanyahu stand down in Lebanon and Iran in order to facilitate this troubling deal, despite Hezbollah’s and the Iranian regime’s rocket and drone attacks on Israel, plays right into the Iranian regime’s hands, undermining necessary deterrence, and endangering Israel’s safety. Pressuring Israel to not respond to threats of annihilation and attacks on her people is not, as Mr. Trump calls it, a “Great Deal that will bring Peace and Security to the whole Region.”

Psychologically, Trump’s deal and his pressure on Israel will embolden the Iranian regime and its proxies and enable them to declare victory over the U.S. and Israel.

President Trump also stated on Truth Social that the deal will be a “WALL against Iran ever having a nuclear weapon, the complete opposite of Obuma [sic].” While we hope that is the case, how will this be achieved? There appears to be no agreement at this time on whether or how to remove Iran’s nuclear stockpiles and decommission its nuclear facilities. Furthermore, the Iranian regime has been busily mining the entrances to its nuclear stockpiles, making removing them much more difficult. The Iranian regime, which is dead set against giving up its nuclear material, is thus doing everything in its power to ensure that negotiations to remove nuclear materials will not succeed. Moreover, the deal does not appear to address Iran’s ballistic missiles, the delivery system for a potential nuclear warhead.

Iranian state media leaks claimed that the deal would allow the continuation of Iranian nuclear enrichment and billions of dollars of payments to Iran, terms amounting to total capitulation by the U.S. President Trump condemned the leaks as having no resemblance to the truth, and condemned the leakers as “Very dishonorable people to deal with. With them, there is no such thing as dealing in good faith. AMAZING!” So, how can we expect the dishonorable Iranians to act in anything but bad faith during further negotiations?

The U.S. military was close to a total victory when it prematurely stopped Epic Fury, and Iran on the verge of economic collapse. The president’s previously stated goal of total victory was the correct goal for bringing peace and stability to the region.

Without total victory, we will have an Iranian regime with a rebuilt arsenal of ballistic missiles and eventual nukes to destroy Israel and many of its neighbors, intercontinental missiles that could reach the U.S., continuing threats to murder U.S. citizens and officials, including the president, more attacks on U.S. embassies and facilities, the rearming of Iran’s proxies, and Iranian involvement in more 9/11 attacks and Jewish Center bombings.

Also disturbing is that the interim deal with Iran does not appear to be even close to the U.S. and Israeli goals of eliminating the existential dangers of Iran’s nuclear program and ballistic missiles, ending the Iranian regime’s support for its terror proxies, and helping the Iranian people overturn the brutal, genocidal Iranian regime. The world will not be safe as long as Iran’s hateful genocidal regime exists. n

Morton A. Klein has served as the national president of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA), the oldest pro-Israel group in the United States, since 1993. He is a consistently principled pro-Israel voice who brings a historically grounded perspective on U.S.–Israel relations and the ongoing struggle to secure lasting peace. He also serves as a member of the National Council of AIPAC and is widely regarded as one of the leading Jewish activists in the United States. The child of Holocaust survivors, he was born in a displaced persons camp in Gunzberg, Germany.

Founded in 1897, the Zionist Organization of America is the oldest pro-Israel organization in the United States. The ZOA works towards strengthening US-Israel relations through educational activities, public affairs programs, advocating on Capitol Hill, and by combating anti-Israel bias in the media, textbooks, and on campuses. For more information, visit ZOA.org.