An American Administration That Does Not Know Iran

On paper, the American-Iranian memorandum of understanding eventually signed by President Donald Trump and President Masoud Pezeshkian appears to be a document in which all outstanding questions remain unresolved. Apart from reopening the Strait of Hormuz and lifting the American naval blockade imposed on the “Islamic Republic”, nothing points to any breakthrough on the issues that continue to divide Washington and Tehran.

Can one also say, at least on paper, that the Trump administration has chosen to yield to Iran rather than follow through on its initial determination to break its capacity for disruption and put an end to its expansionist project, as it had originally intended?

A close reading of the memorandum’s fourteen points clearly shows that the Trump administration has left all the fundamental issues hanging in the balance. The fate of Iran’s nuclear programme remains unclear, even though Trump has repeatedly insisted that its very existence is unacceptable. There is no mention of ballistic missiles or their infrastructure, nor is there any position regarding Iran’s regional proxies, apart from the assertion that the ceasefire agreed with the United States extends to Lebanon.

How will this translate on the ground in Lebanon? Are the Iranians convinced that the United States will force Israel to abide by the ceasefire there? To be fair, Israel is currently observing it. Yet the memorandum contains nothing to suggest that Israel, which is not a party to the agreement, has bowed to American pressure in Lebanon or that it will carry out, at the earliest opportunity, whatever Washington asks of it. Despite American declarations announcing a ceasefire in Lebanon, Israel’s position towards the country remains shrouded in profound ambiguity.

It did not take long after the memorandum entered into force for implementation difficulties to emerge. One fact quickly became apparent: the Trump administration knows little about Iran and even less about the behaviour of Iranian officials. In the past, however, it gave the impression of understanding much more. Perhaps this was due, during Trump’s first term, to the presence of a cohesive team that fully grasped, for example, the significance of eliminating Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force within the Revolutionary Guards, and the far-reaching implications of such an event. The matter extended well beyond Iran’s domestic sphere, where Soleimani occupied the second highest position in the power structure after the now deceased Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. He was also the Islamic Republic’s principal man in the region and the spearhead of its strategy. He was the de facto commander of the Houthis, the high commissioner in Iraq and the effective ruler of both Syria and Lebanon.

Some believe that the current American administration suffers from the absence of a figure such as former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Pompeo understood what the Iranian regime was and how to deal with it. It is striking that, in recent weeks, the Iranian file has been removed from the State Department’s hands. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has appeared more like a mere bystander, reduced to the role of a simple observer of what is unfolding between Tehran and Washington.

A group of American officials cut from the cloth of Vice President J. D. Vance, who knows very little about Iran, cannot manage a dossier of such sensitivity. What we are witnessing today is merely a new chapter in a story that began in 1979, when Iran’s new authorities held American embassy diplomats hostage in Tehran for 444 days. That hostage crisis, which elicited no American response, opened the door to further blackmail by the Islamic Republic against the “Great Satan”. Over the past forty-seven years, the Islamic Republic has manipulated most American administrations. In 2003, it even succeeded in steering the administration of George W. Bush towards invading Iraq, paving the way for its eventual handover to Iraqi sectarian militias affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, militias that had fought alongside the Islamic Republic during the Iran-Iraq War from 1980 to 1988.

The memorandum signed recently, a document devoid of any real viability, amounts to nothing more than a return by the Trump administration to traditional American policy towards the Islamic Republic. The possibility of the United States going to war with Iran was no more than an exceptional episode. Donald Trump has returned to his familiar position as a dealmaker seeking an agreement with Tehran. That explains why he entrusted the file to his vice president, alongside his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Nothing has changed in Iran to justify an American concession to the Revolutionary Guards. The day when Washington can portray Iran as a place suitable for major commercial deals remains far away. What we are witnessing today is an American mindset grappling with an extraordinarily complex file whose details and history it does not understand. This is the same American mindset that once wanted to turn Gaza into a “new Riviera”, a mindset disconnected from the realities of the region. It fails to grasp that Iran has no intention of changing. All the leadership in Tehran wants is to buy time.

Iran is betting on political change inside Israel, on widening American-Israeli disagreements and on the Trump administration losing the midterm elections next November. At that point, Trump would become little more than a lame duck president.

We will soon discover whether that Americain wager was well founded.

The American president has fallen into Iran’s trap. One thing is certain: Donald Trump is no easy man, but his enduring problem lies in the absence of a team that truly understands what Iran is, whereas Iran knows perfectly well how to deal with America. The Iranians possess decades of experience in outmanoeuvring American administrations and bending them to their advantage while waiting for the right moment to deploy the blackmail tactics they have mastered to perfection. Nor does this concern America alone. The countries of the region, as well as those of Western Europe, have, at their core, adopted an exceedingly cautious stance towards this memorandum of understanding.