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June 21, 2026
Key Developments and What We're Discussing Today:
- Trump launched a pointless, costly war with Iran that ended in failure. He never delivered a coherent rationale for his unauthorized war, and his bad Iran deal marks a humiliating defeat for the U.S.
- If Trump succeeded in anything, it's in proving that he made a costly mistake by withdrawing from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in his first term.
- Trump's war has cost roughly $50 billion, plus nearly $60 billion more in higher fuel prices. Thirteen U.S. servicemembers lost their lives. At least 3,375 Iranians lost their lives, including at least 168 children and 14 teachers when the U.S. struck an elementary school. At least 35 Israelis were killed and nearly 8,000 Israeli civilians were injured.
- Under Trump's Memorandum of Understanding, Iran gets immediate sanctions relief, a promise of $300 billion for reconstruction and economic development, access to an additional $24 billion, and a commitment by the U.S. and its allies (i.e., Israel ) to stop attacks in Lebanon. Iran does not have to curtail its nuclear program and after 60 days, it can charge tolls for using the Strait of Hormuz, which was open for free before Trump started this war.
- We are seeing in real time the alternative to the JCPOA (Obama's Iran Deal). I wonder how many organizations, politicians, and pundits who supported Trump, cheered this war, or opposed the JCPOA will admit they were wrong.
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Friends,
Remember when Trump said there would be no deal with Iran except unconditional surrender? Trump didn't say whose unconditional surrender, so maybe the agreement he signed to end his war with Iran counts as a win.
Remember when Trump said the war, which started in February, would last a few days or a week? Trump did not specify Earth days, so maybe he was right. On Venus, not even a day has passed since the war started.
But anyone living on this planet knows that Trump's war has ended in failure. He never delivered a coherent rationale for his unauthorized war. His bad Iran deal marks a defeat for the U.S.
Trump's war has cost roughly $50 billion, plus nearly $60 billion more in higher fuel prices. Since the money wasn't going toward healthcare, education, housing, or food, Republicans didn't ask how we were going to pay for it.
Thirteen U.S. servicemembers lost their lives. At least 3,375 Iranians lost their lives, including at least 168 children and 14 teachers when the U.S. struck an elementary school. At least 35 Israelis were killed and nearly 8,000 Israeli civilians were injured.
We lost all those lives, we spent all that money, and in return, we are worse off than when Trump started this war. As Timothy Snyder writes, "War, as some people apparently needed to learn, is not about the pleasure one takes in watching things blow up. It is politics by other means. To win a war means changing the politics of the enemy such that they must surrender. That is what Iran just did to the United States."
Don't believe we lost? Read the annotated 14-point draft Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the U.S. and Iran and decide for yourself. Note that the version released by Iran differs in some respects, but those differences do not materially affect the analysis below.
Iran gets a commitment to end attacks on Lebanon (including U.S. allies, which means including Israel), throwing a lifeline to its ally Hezbollah.
Iran gets at least $300 billion for "reconstruction and economic development."
Iran "reiterates" that it will never produce nuclear weapons (this was in the Iran Deal that Trump ripped up during his first term), but get this: Under Trump's MOU, "the fate of enriched material and the fate of all other mutually agreed nuclear-related issues, including Iran’s nuclear needs, will be adequately addressed in a final agreement."
It gets worse: Pending a final agreement, "Iran will maintain the status quo on its nuclear program, and the United States will not impose new sanctions on Iran or strengthen its forces in the region."
Didn't Trump obliterate Iran's nuclear program last year? What did we fight this war for? Talk about kicking the can down the road, but Trump said last week that Iran's enriched uranium "is not very valuable stuff" and that he's open to nuclear enrichment for Iran.
The terms of our surrender also include immediately issuing "waivers for exports of Iranian crude oil, petrochemical products and their derivatives, and all related services, including banking, insurance, transportation, and the like" and releasing Iran's frozen or restricted funds--another $24 billion for Iran.
What do we get in return for all that? We get a commitment from Iran to re-open the Strait of Hormuz, which was open before Trump started this war. After 60 days, Iran can charge tolls, which it never did before the war. Good job, Trump.
By every objective measure, we are worse off today than we were under Obama's Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. As Max Boot, explains the JCPOA "forced Iran to send 98 percent of its enriched uranium stockpile out of the country and limited its future enrichment to 3.67 percent for 15 years. Not until international inspectors had verified compliance did the Obama administration relax nuclear sanctions while keeping others in place. Trump, by contrast, is giving Iran a huge financial windfall simply for negotiating about its nuclear program."
History rarely lets us see what would have happened if we had taken the other path. We are seeing in real time that those who opposed the JCPOA were wrong. That's not surprising. What is surprising is that anyone gives much weight to the opinions of those who were so wrong in 2015.
Trump's MOU pushes off the nuclear issues. It makes no mention of terrorism, Iran's ballistic missile program, or any of the non-nuclear issues that critics of the JCPOA claimed were fatal. But as Trump said last week, "if other countries have [ballistic missiles], it's a little unfair for [Iran] not to have some."
Dan Shapiro writes that Iran "is being rewarded with a shift from maximum pressure to maximum windfall."
Tom Friedman explains that Trump capitulated to Iran because rising gas prices would mean GOP defeats in November, and Democratic control of Congress would mean "endless investigations into how he has used the presidency to enrich himself and his family — and possibly even impeachment."
As the Wall Street Journal reports, Iran now knows that it "can survive the worst the Americans can throw at them."
And as Friedman explains, Iran now knows the power of its control of the Strait of Hormuz: "In their attempt to stop Iran from developing a weapon of mass destruction that it was unlikely to ever use — since Israel would immediately use one on Iran — Trump and Netanyahu inspired Iran to develop a weapon of mass disruption, a chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, which it can use anytime it feels too much pressure from the United States or Israel."
We cannot expect Trump's Iran deal to do what the JCPOA could not do, but if you think it's unfair to compare the MOU to the JCPOA (given the caveats outlined by arms control expert Kelsey Davenport), you can judge the MOU and the final deal by the standards Trump set.
Glenn Kessler has more details on the case against Trump's Iran MOU--by Trump.
Foreign policy expert Joel Rubin, author of Saving Democratic Foreign Policy, summarized Trump's bad deal in 49 seconds.
How did we get into this mess? In this first term, Trump withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran, sometimes known as the Iran Deal. Iran was in compliance with the terms of the deal when Trump withdrew, three years into the JCPOA. Under the JCPOA, Iran had moved weeks from nuclear breakout to a year or more.
Critics of the JCPOA complained that the deal kicked the can down the road because under the terms of the deal, certain safeguards would begin to drop off after ten years. They did not understand that the theory was that during those ten years, the U.S. could build alliances, make plans, develop technology, and take advantage of information gathered through the most intrusive inspections program in the history of arms control agreements.
Those who opposed the deal never explained why, instead of potentially facing problems in ten years, they preferred to face those same problems immediately, with no safeguards.
The best-case scenario was that after ten years, Iran might not cheat (the ban on nuclear weapons was permanent). The worst-case scenario was that we'd be better prepared to counter cheating.
After Trump withdrew from the deal, his “maximum pressure” strategy failed. His efforts at the UN to continue the arms embargo against Iran failed. His efforts at the UN to snap back sanctions against Iran failed. Trump’s first-term Iran policy was a failure.
Freed from the JCPOA's constraints, Iran moved closer to nuclear weapons than it was when it entered into the JCPOA, presenting the second Trump administration with a dilemma: What could Trump do in his second term that would be even more stupid than what he did in his first term?
In June 2025, Trump attacked Iran and claimed that he obliterated Iran's nuclear program. Then, on February 28, 2026, Trump started an unauthorized war against Iran, maybe to re-obliterate Iran's nuclear program. And here we are.
Trump tried every alternative to the JCPOA and failed every time. If Trump had not won the presidency and we had stayed in the JCPOA, we'd never know if opponents of the JCPOA might have been right. Now we know.
For those keeping score at home, virtually everything JD Vance said about the JCPOA and Trump's MOU in this clip is wildly misleading or outright false.
Trump's bad Iran deal should come as no surprise to anyone who paid attention. If you were reading my newsletter in 2020, you knew that John Bolton warned Israel that if Trump were reelected, Trump might cozy up to Iran. “Just as Kim Jong Un played Trump along in the Korea context, I worry that in a second term the Iranians might be able to do the same,” Bolton said.
On October 3, 2024, Bolton noted that Trump said "that this conflict between Iran and Israel is like two kids in a school yard fighting. And that's about a typical Donald Trump assessment of a complex, international problem. Those who think he's going to be reflexively supportive of Israel really should think again."
Jennifer Rubin writes that Trump's MOU reads "like a near total capitulation — but not by the Iranian regime." JDCA CEO Halie Soifer details the Art of the (Very Bad) Deal.
This mess is entirely of Trump's making, aided and abetted by a Republican-controlled Congress that has repeatedly shirked its Constitutional responsibility to act as a check on the Executive Branch.
I know people have strong opinions on these issues. I read all replies to my newsletter, but if you intend to say anything mean, first read Jeffrey Goldberg's advice from 2015 on how to write proper Iran-related hate mail.
In Case You Missed It:
- Two former Israeli prime ministers and former heads of Israel's security branches sent a letter to Netanyahu demanding decisive action against Jewish terror in the West Bank.
Jewish Insider Fail of the Week. JI's "reporting" on Trump's criticism of Israel's conduct in Lebanon failed to note that Trump said, "without me, there would be no Israel," and failed to mention that Trump said, "Why did Bibi have to do a f***ing attack? I was so pissed off. I let him know. He has no f***ng judgement. I let him know that." Imagine if Biden or Obama had publicly talked about Israel or the prime minister of Israel like that.
Social Media of the Week. Steven Huffman, Ned Price, Barak Ravid, Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), and Jimmy Kimmel.
Video Clips of the Week. Saul Goodman celebrates 250 years of America and Jonathan Pie and Dave Columbo.
Vintage Music Clip of the Week. The Kinks - Sunny Afternoon (1966).
The Fine Print. Read the fine print before you reply or send me anything.
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Be sure to read my posts on distinguishing anti-Zionism from antisemitism, understanding the words Zionism, apartheid, and genocide, how to heal the generational rift on Israel and antisemitism, and the IHRA definition of antisemitism.
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