The Wall Street Journal editorial board lambasted President Donald Trump over his efforts to secure a durable peace deal with Iran.
U.S. and Iranian officials have agreed to halt their attacks on one another and meet Tuesday to talk out their dispute over the Strait of Hormuz, and the conservative newspaper's editors bashed the 80-year-old president for failing to keep the crucial waterway open – as it had been before he launched the war on Feb. 28.
"The best selling point for President Trump’s memorandum of understanding with Iran was that at least it opened the Strait of Hormuz," the board wrote. "Well, now the regime is trying to nullify those terms by using force against commercial vessels, Gulf states and U.S. bases. All of this violates the deal and calls into question why Mr. Trump signed it."
The U.S. and Iran have traded strikes, and Trump has hyped what he called “gentlemen’s agreements” with Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leaders to "turn over a new leaf," but the Journal's editors said the president was wrong to trust them.
"Well, these are no gentlemen," they wrote. "It’s the same terrorist regime, and this is the Battle of Hormuz that Mr. Trump thought he had ducked. In case there was any doubt, foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said Sunday that Iran is solely responsible for managing the Strait under the memorandum. He said 'no other country has any responsibility in that regard.'"
"Force is the regime’s means to make the world bend," they added. "Without it, shippers refused to heed Iran’s dictates for Hormuz during the deal’s early days."
The editorial board wondered why Trump was willing to give Iran anything without an assurance that the strait would remain free and open.
"The U.S. needs the leverage for nuclear negotiations, and it was never wise to give Iran a blank check," the board wrote. "All the more so now that the regime isn’t respecting the deal, which mandates a cease-fire as well as Iran’s 'best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels.' That means don’t shoot at them, for starters."
"More U.S. 'love taps' against Iranian targets won’t impress the hard men in Tehran," the editors added. "They behave as if they have escalation dominance because they think Mr. Trump won’t return to war before the midterm elections. They don’t believe Mr. Trump’s social-media bluster because they see his reluctance to enforce the cease-fire terms."