Why, oh why does everyone jump through hoops when Donald Trump announces yet another deal with Iran? It’s become such a joke that when “breaking news” notifications pop up on my phone these days, I always say to myself, “Trump’s touting another Iran deal.”
Only a fool would believe Trump when he says a deal is “complete.” Because once again, the man who wrote The Art of the Deal, or more accurately, paid Tony Schwartz to write it, says a deal is done. It is set to be signed this Friday in Geneva, and the entire world is responding the way it always does: by believing something Trump says and breathing yet another sigh of relief.
This war has been a shambolic, haphazard pigsty of epic proportions. Come to think of it, didn’t J.D. Vance go to Pakistan to sign a deal? Or was it Marco Rubio? Or was it Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff? Or did they all go together? Or did they go to Qatar?
See what I mean?
Yes, I know there was a preliminary deal signed on Monday, but...
Here’s what we supposedly have. The U.S. and Iran say they’ve reached an agreement to end more than 100 days of war, reopen the Strait of Hormuz, lift the U.S. blockade — and God knows what it'll do about Iran’s nuclear program.
Trump stated over the weekend and on Monday that Iran no longer wants to pursue nuclear weapons. That comment defies explanation and forces you to let go of any sense of reality.
The formal signing is scheduled for Friday in Switzerland, mediated by Pakistan and Qatar. I guess you have to invite them at this point. Maybe everyone thinks the third time is a charm? Or is this the fourth attempt to sign a deal?
Trump is telling reporters the actual text of the memorandum “may not be released until after Friday.” Which means nobody knows what the hell they are going to sign on Friday because, just like the war, this so-called memorandum is a shambolic, haphazard pigsty.
But details are leaking. There are reports that Iran will receive a whopping $300 billion for reconstruction. Only an idiotic fool would hand this intensely crooked regime that absurd amount of money,
And Trump says the Strait of Hormuz will be open. But it appears there’s a significant diplomatic dispute over Iran's plan to charge commercial vessels, because the strait’s territorial waters belong exclusively to Iran and Oman,
Tehran asserts it has the legal right to co-manage the waterway and levy charges
Who can trust either side? And more pointedly, who can trust Iran to begin with, let alone trust them to sign something 72 hours away? Then there’s Netanyahu, who you’d think might have an opinion on a deal involving his own backyard. Yet his office released a statement clarifying that Israel isn’t even a party to it.
Iran says one thing. Trump boasts about another. Iran says what Trump says isn’t true. Israel and Lebanon exchange fire. Iran makes an irrational, late stage demand. American officials say that’s not how any of this works.
And on and on.
If this all feels familiar, it’s because we’ve watched this before. Donald Trump has always, from his earliest days, failed to shepherd lasting deals to successful completion.
Back in 1983, a younger Donald Trump bought himself a football team, the New Jersey Generals, and by 1986, it all went bankrupt.
He decided the USFL’s best move was to challenge the NFL head-on in court with an antitrust lawsuit Trump was sure would force a merger or a massive payout.
He testified. He guaranteed victory. He bloviated. And the USFL did, technically, win. A jury found the NFL had acted as a monopoly. The prize? One dollar, tripled to three under antitrust law.
The league folded within days, and Trump walked away from the wreckage of a deal he’d personally engineered with nothing to show for it but failure.
And 40 years later, we have the same mess, but with much bigger stakes, and still the same failure of a man trying to win. He will lose. He always does.
That’s the Trump pattern. Announce it loudly, skimp on the details, let everyone else clean up later. A “very strong memorandum of understanding,” that Trump himself admits is “a little conceptual,” is not a peace deal.
This reminded me of the September 2024 presidential debate, when pressed on his decade-long promise to replace the Affordable Care Act, Trump famously blurted out, “I have concepts of a plan.” Doesn’t that sound familiar to “a little conceptual?”
One wonders what happened to those “concepts?”
Finally, there’s one aspect of this fragile deal that could kaput the whole thing: Trump’s Truth Social ramblings, attacks, and verbosity.
His short fuse and fat, fast fingers could blow the whole thing apart. If Iran makes a noncommittal statement, or if someone says Trump is TACO’ing again, or doing what Obama did with this shoddy Iran deal, Trump won’t be able to control himself. He will flail.
And Iran will say, OK, if that’s how you feel, we ain’t signing. The bottom line is that Iran has Trump over a barrel because he wants to put the war “in the rear view mirror.”
But that looks more and more impossible as Friday looms. Late on Tuesday, the Trump mouthpiece New York Post editorial board posted a column titled, “Trump’s Iran deal gives the Islamic Republic big wins upfront — and America nothing."
Now, if by some miracle this “nothing” deal gets signed Friday without incident, the real test starts the next day, with 60 days of negotiations over the issues that actually matter. Run by Trump’s gut, they will surely fall apart, just like his New Jersey Generals exactly 40 years ago.
