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BY PHILIP ELLIOTT
Senior Correspondent, TIME |
Even before the White House released the actual text of its agreement with Iran on Wednesday, leaked snippets were getting a lot of Republicans nervous. Allowing Iran to sell oil again? Lifting sanctions? A $300 billion economic development deal? Five months after joining Israel in starting a war that he predicted would be over quickly, President Donald Trump is hurtling toward a ceasefire that some in his party are struggling to defend. |
In fact, almost no one in Washington seems particularly excited about this deal, either the outdated version that leaked late yesterday, or the official one a Senior U.S. Official read aloud on a call with reporters today. Many downright hate it. And in private, more than a few nat-sec nerds on the Hill say this looks an awful lot like the early stages of where the Obama Administration ended up landing. |
Which wouldn’t necessarily be so terrible if Trump wasn’t the one who lit that deal on fire during his first term. |
Yet to be clear, this agreement—due to be signed on Friday in Switzerland—is far from the comprehensive agreement struck during the Obama era. This is merely a 60-day ceasefire that is “extendable with mutual consent” while Iran and the United States talk about Iran’s nuclear program, which was Trump’s stated premise to get this whole affair in motion back in February. |
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Look no further than Lindsey Graham to see how little enthusiasm this potential “deal” is generating. |
The South Carolina Republican is a typically buoyant cheerleader of all things Trump. So as the White House was circulating a concise tentative agreement on Wednesday that would stop missiles flying in the region and reopen one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, Graham spoke with the United States’ top negotiator, Steve Witkoff. After the call, he offered tepid praise “in as much as the Strait of Hormuz will begin to open, and the hostilities with Iran will stop.” |
Then he immediately added a caveat. “Whether or not the United States can reach an acceptable, verifiable deal with Iran regarding its nuclear program and other issues is yet to be determined,” Graham posted on social media, “but I see little downside to trying.” |
Graham may end up proving the perfect barometer of the GOP opinion of the still-being-processed detente: hopeful that Trump’s risky strikes on Iran, including the assassination of its Supreme Leader, prove worth the costs of life and cash. |
And the timing is notable, as Republican on the Hill start to show signs of rediscovering their spines. First, Trump’s own MAGA base forced him last year to sign a law to release files related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Then they stopped a $1.8 billion slush fund for the Jan. 6 convicts. House Republicans even had to cancel a vote on a bill that would have limited Trump’s options on Iran when it became clear more than enough Republicans would join Democrats to pass it. (A procedural car crash in the Senate on Wednesday over Trump's pick to be the next Director of National Intelligence was the latest example of Trump struggling with his own party occasionally standing up to him.) |
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Sen. Bill Cassidy, the Louisiana Republican whose re-election bid Trump killed, was criticizing a leaked draft of the plan as 'not a very good plan" even before the White House unveiled the official one. By Wednesday afternoon, his assessment was even more withering. "Before the war, the strait was open, Iran was being crushed by sanctions, and 13 service members were still alive. Now, 13 Americans are dead, families have paid billions at the pump, sanctions will be lifted, and the bombing has stopped," he wrote on social media. "This is the worst foreign policy blunder in decades." |
Reacting to the early leaks, Nikki Haley, Trump’s former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, who ran for President in 2024 on a largely tough-on-Iran platform, urged skepticism that the emerging deal would leave Trump in a stronger position. “If this is true, Iran wins,” Haley wrote on social media on Tuesday. (The issue she was referring to—that the agreement would immediately allow Iran to begin exporting crude oil again—are in the official text.) |
Trump’s first-term Vice President, Mike Pence, was equally critical on Wednesday, telling CNN “it smacks of appeasement.” |
Congress, of course, has a say. Under the 2015 law meant to check then-President Barack Obama’s dealmaking with Iran, Congress has to receive a copy of the deal within five days of being reached and then has 30 days to vote on a resolution of disapproval. So, in his own way, Obama still hangs over Trump’s self-declared win. |
There are many, many unresolved issues that remain on the table—if they’re on the table at all. The agreement says nothing about human rights in Iran, an issue that sparked protests there and reminded Trump of that nation. Nor does it address Americans detained in Iran. Nor does it deal with Iran’s support for proxy groups like Hezbollah. Nor does it put in place a timeline for Iran’s nuclear disarmament. |
So while Trump is heralding the step as a leap forward, even his apologists in Washington see shortcomings. It’s why no one is lashing themselves to Trump’s version as particularly permanent—as they worry that the end result may find Trump doing little better than the 2015 deal that Trump has spent the last decade deriding. |
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