A foreign policy expert argued on Monday that President Donald Trump's "sham" deal with the Iranian regime reveals the president is really looking to "turn the page" on a war he started without resolving all of the hard problems he's left behind.
Over the weekend, Trump and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced that the U.S. and Iran had reached an "agreement" that could end their 106-day conflict. The agreement stipulated that the two sides would sign it on Friday, and that tougher discussion about Iran's nuclear weapons program and the Strait of Hormuz would be put off for another day.
David Rothkopf, a columnist for The Daily Beast and the former editor at large of Foreign Policy Magazine, said during a new podcast episode that the deal Trump and the Pakistani's announced isn't a deal at all. Instead, he described it as a "sham."
“So, it’s not a deal; it’s not even a framework of a deal,” Rothkopf said. “It’s a sham. If you launch a war against somebody and the other side comes out better than you do, and then you have to sue for peace and pay them money to get you back to the status quo, in military or in diplomatic terms, you know what we call that?”
Reports indicate that the U.S. has approved a $300 billion reconstruction package for Iran to access at some point in the future. Some reports indicate that the money could be sent by the Qatari government, while Vice President JD Vance told Sean Hannity of Fox News that it would likely come from investments in the region.
Rothkopf argued that no matter who pays the money, one thing is clear: Trump lost the war with Iran.
“We call that a loss. We call that surrender,” he said. “And what Trump is doing is he is surrendering to a weaker ally because a war we shouldn’t have started was blundered through, contained many mistakes, and he just wants to turn the page.”