{"id":497564,"date":"2026-06-17T16:06:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T16:06:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/497564\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T16:06:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T16:06:15","slug":"trumps-deal-is-a-catastrophic-capitulation-to-irans-aggressors-leaves-israel-vulnerable-and-constrained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/497564\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump’s deal is a catastrophic capitulation to Iran’s aggressors, leaves Israel vulnerable and constrained"},"content":{"rendered":"

An earlier version of this Editor\u2019s Note was sent out earlier Wednesday in ToI\u2019s weekly update email to members of the Times of Israel Community. To receive these Editor\u2019s Notes as they\u2019re released, join the ToI Community here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On March 2, the third day of the US-Israel war against Iran, US President Donald Trump\u2019s special envoy Steve Witkoff gave an interview to Fox News in which he explained why the administration\u2019s efforts to negotiate a deal with the regime in Tehran earlier in the year had failed.<\/p>\n

He and Jared Kushner, Witkoff recalled<\/a>, had been tasked with seeking an agreement under which Iran would halt its nuclear program, dismantle its ballistic missile program, cease its support for proxies, and eliminate its navy \u201cso we can have freedom of the seas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Far from entertaining a willingness to compromise, despite having been battered in the June 2025 12-day war, said Witkoff, the Iranian negotiators bragged that their obduracy and duplicity had been paying off. On the nuclear front, they gloated, they had amassed 460 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, which, Witkoff noted in his interview, could be turned into weapons-grade within 10 days.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn that first meeting, both the Iranian negotiators said to us directly \u2014 with no shame \u2014 that they controlled 460 kilograms of 60% [enriched uranium] and that they\u2019re aware that could make 11 nuclear bombs,\u201d Witkoff recalled, aghast. The Iranians, he exclaimed, \u201cwere proud that they had evaded all sorts of oversight protocols to get to a place where they could deliver 11 nuclear bombs.\u201d<\/p>\n

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They also claimed to have \u201can inalienable right\u201d to enrich their nuclear fuel,\u201d he noted, saying that he and Kushner had responded, robustly, by declaring \u201cthat the president feels we have the inalienable right to stop you dead in your tracks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fast-forward three and a half months, and the US will on Friday formally sign a memorandum of understanding with Iran, already signed digitally long-distance, that resolves none of the goals of the war \u2014 none of the goals that Witkoff and Kushner attempted to resolve in their negotiated effort to avert the war.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tIn this handout photo released by the Omani Ministry of Foreign Affairs on February 6, 2026, US special envoy Steve Witkoff (C), Jared Kushner, and Oman\u2019s Foreign Minister Badr bin Hamad al-Busaidi pose for a photo during a meeting in Muscat amid US-Iran negotiations. (Handout\/ Omani Foreign Ministry\/ AFP)<\/p>\n

According to a draft of the text obtained by The Times of Israel<\/a>, CNN and Bloomberg on Wednesday, the 14-point MOU potentially grants the regime hundreds of billions of dollars \u2014 which it will doubtless utilize to help keep its restive population in line, to massively fund Hezbollah, Hamas and its other terrorist proxies, and to spend as needed on its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. (The White House said later Wednesday, without elaboration, that the draft text \u201cdoes not reflect the language of the actual MOU.\u201d)<\/p>\n

The draft agreement provides for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz \u2014 the vital waterway Iran seized and leveraged to push Trump into this deal \u2014 but with no long-term commitment by the regime to keep it open and toll-free.<\/p>\n

And it pushes the entire subject of Iran\u2019s rogue nuclear program into a 60-day negotiation period, during which the regime can be relied upon to be as uncompromising and dismissive as its negotiators were when facing Witkoff and Kushner in January.<\/p>\n

Incredibly, the draft text of the MOU already rewards the regime for its intransigence: The draft document states that Iran\u2019s \u201cnuclear needs\u201d will be addressed in those 60 days; the US negotiators apparently could not even persuade the regime to include the words \u201cpeaceful\u201d or \u201ccivilian,\u201d to at least keep up the pretense that it has legitimate nuclear requirements.<\/p>\n

During the 60 days, the MOU draft text continues ridiculously, \u201cIran will maintain the status quo on its nuclear program.\u201d What status quo would that be? The \u201cstatus quo\u201d under which Iran has run rings around the UN\u2019s nuclear inspectors, to the point where, as its negotiators boasted to Witkoff, it amassed enough near-weapons-grade uranium for 11 nuclear bombs, an underground stockpile that survived the US Army\u2019s B-2 bunker busters last June?<\/p>\n

Last month, a senior Israeli military official warned<\/a> that if the stockpile was not removed in the wake of the war, the campaign should be considered \u201cone big failure.\u201d And here we are. The official also warned that if that central goal was not met, Israel would need to launch another operation in Iran to achieve it. The draft text of the MOU would prevent Israel from doing so.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tIn this photo released by the Pakistan Foreign Ministry, Iran\u2019s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, center right, and Iran\u2019s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, center left, are greeted by Pakistan Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, right, and Army Chief Field Marshal Gen. Asim Munir, left, upon their arrival at Nur Khan airbase in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, April 11, 2026, during negotiations on a deal to permanently end the war against the US and Israel. (Pakistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs via AP)<\/p>\n

US sources have vouchsafed in recent days that CIA Director John Ratcliffe has warned Trump and his key officials that the regime is playing a double game. The CIA chief has reportedly explained that evidence gathered by US intelligence agencies raises serious doubts that Iran would be willing to make the nuclear concessions that the US wants in any final deal. \u201cThe intelligence reflects that the Iranian intentions are not in line with their commitments under the deal,\u201d one US source told Axios<\/a>. \u201cNot in line with their commitments.\u201d What magnificent understatement.<\/p>\n

Of course, the Iranians have no intention of making any concessions that would strategically thwart their path to the bomb. Of course, they\u2019re lying. They cheerfully told Witkoff in January that they\u2019ve lied their way to their 60% stockpile.<\/p>\n

The danger now, as realistically seen by Israel<\/a>, is that they will use the 60-day \u201cstatus quo\u201d to accelerate toward nuclear breakout.<\/p>\n

And yet, the same US administration negotiators who recoiled in horror at Iran\u2019s obduracy in January have now yielded to it in June.<\/p>\n

The MOU directly endangers and constrains Israel, with terminology that binds Israel to a ceasefire it had no part in negotiating<\/p>\n

The deal manifestly empowers and finances a mass-murdering regime. It elevates the Islamic Republic to a regional powerhouse. It abandons the Iranian people to whom Trump promised that help was on its way.\n<\/p>\n

And it directly endangers and constrains Israel, with terminology that binds Israel to a ceasefire it had no part in negotiating: \u201cThe Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States, together with their allies in the current war, declare upon the signing of this Memorandum of Understanding an immediate and permanent end to the war on all fronts, including Lebanon, and undertake that from now on they will not launch any hostile action against each other, and will refrain from the threat or use of force against each other (italics added).\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tUS President Donald Trump meets with Qatar\u2019s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, not seen, during a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the G7 summit, Tuesday, June 16, 2026, in Evian-les-Bains, France. At right is US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. (AP Photo\/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)<\/p>\n

Trump asserted in remarks at the G7 summit on Tuesday that Israel should be showering him with gratitude, since it is only thanks to him that we were not already eliminated in an Iranian nuclear assault.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it weren\u2019t for the United States of America \u2014 with me, because Obama was the opposite \u2014 Israel would not exist right now. Israel would have been blown off the face of the earth, 100 percent. And every smart person in Israel knows that,\u201d he declared.\u00a0\u201cWithout us, without the United States, there would be no Israel. Without me, there\u2019d be no Israel, because no other president was willing to do what I did [in tackling Iran].\u201d Iran, he said, was \u201ctwo weeks away\u201d from having a nuclear weapon.<\/p>\n

But he has now struck a deal that fails to definitively close off Tehran\u2019s practical capacity to complete its nuclear program, and removes US military leverage to deter it from doing so.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s not all.<\/p>\n

Let Syria take care of Hezbollah?!<\/p>\n

Trump at the G7 also took public aim at Israel<\/a> for its ostensibly disproportionate military action against Iran\u2019s Hezbollah terror proxy in Lebanon.<\/p>\n

Using the language of Israel\u2019s bitterest critics, he charged that \u201cIsrael is fighting Hezbollah too long and too many people are being killed.\u201d Elaborating, he snapped that \u201cyou don\u2019t have to knock down an apartment house every time you\u2019re looking for somebody. Because there are a lot of people in those apartment houses. And they\u2019re not all Hezbollah, that I can tell you.\u201d<\/p>\n

So he wants both a shorter war, and also a less damaging war, to tackle a vast terrorist army, emplaced within civilian areas, directed by Iran to batter northern Israel these past weeks. A terrorist army dedicated, like Iran, to destroying Israel, and one that will invade northern Israel if given half a chance.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tThis handout photograph released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) on November 10, 2025, shows US President Donald Trump (L) shaking hands with Syria\u2019s President Ahmed al-Sharaa at the White House in Washington DC. (Handout \/ SANA \/ AFP)<\/p>\n

Warming to his reality-challenged theme, Trump prescribed that Israel \u201clet Syria take care of Hezbollah. Because to be honest with you, I think they\u2019d do a better job of doing it.\u201d That would be Syria under Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former jihadist who had a $10 million US bounty on his head until December 2024, but over whom Trump has gushed since their first meeting in Riyadh last May. \u201cVery capable,\u201d he said of Sharaa on Tuesday. \u201cAnd very good to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

In upside-down Trump world, Israel is the ingrate for not appreciating his heroic interventions on our behalf, and the illegitimate aggressor for seeking to complicate his submission to Tehran and its terror proxies. But the fact is that Trump gave up on the war when it became clear that winning it \u2014 first and foremost by thwarting Iran\u2019s Hormuz takeover \u2014 would likely cost numerous American lives. That was, of course, a legitimate consideration, but one he should have weighed before starting the campaign. Facing enemies bent on its destruction, Israel knows it must put lives on the line to survive in this treacherous region.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds a press conference at the Prime Minister\u2019s Office in Jerusalem, June 15, 2026. (Olivier Fitoussi\/POOL)<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, frozen out of the negotiations, was needless to say not present at the G7 in France either \u2014 too toxic to the assembled notables, and perhaps also at risk of ICC-ordered arrest. Dissembling furiously, he is left trying to assert that the failed war was a success, falsely asserting on Monday night<\/a> that the Iranian nuclear threat has been defused, that Iran\u2019s economy has been devastated, and that the campaign against Iran \u201cdid not go wrong at all.\u201d For his strenuous efforts to avoid a public showdown with Trump, the US president has repaid him by calling him \u201cfucking crazy\u201d and publicly declaring<\/a> that \u201che has no fucking judgment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s leaders, in their current iteration, by contrast, \u201care very rational people\u201d in Trumpland. \u201cThey were nice to deal with. They were strong people, smart people\u2026 They\u2019re not radicalized and they\u2019re, you know, looking to help their country,\u201d he assured us all on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

But, hey, even if they\u2019re not, it turns out that he \u201cnever cared about regime change\u201d anyway. This, from the president who, on February 28, as the US-Israel airstrikes began, told the Iranian public<\/a> that, when the bombs stop, they need to \u201ctake over your government. It will be yours to take.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tPro-government demonstrators wave Iranian and Hezbollah flags in Tehran, Iran, on June 7, 2026. (AP Photo\/Vahid Salemi)<\/p>\n

The 2026 US-Israel war against the Iranian regime was necessary. The Islamic Republic had been gunning down its own people in the tens of thousands. It was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program, reviving its ballistic missile production, rebuilding its terror proxies.<\/p>\n

When the US and Israel struck, it had no hesitation in extorting the world via the Strait of Hormuz, and targeting anyone and anything it perceived to be vulnerable to attack, not only Israel (of course) but also its own regional neighbors, while lamenting that it did not (yet) have the capacity<\/a> to strike directly back at the United States.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tPart of an Iranian ballistic missile is seen in the desert near Jericho in the West Bank after being fired at Israel from Iran, June 8, 2026 (Chaim Goldberg\/Flash90)<\/p>\n

The war was lost through inadequate strategic planning by the US and Israel, and subsequent US presidential weakness. Trump\u2019s capitulation is a betrayal of the Iranian citizenry. It will come back to bite America. It leaves Israel more vulnerable than before it began, with a new US-Iran ceasefire agreement that aims to deny Israel the freedom to protect and defend itself.<\/p>\n

The terms that the regime held out for and won indeed show its leaders to be \u201cvery rational people.\u201d The same, with dire implications for the security of Israel and its people, cannot be said of Trump.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An earlier version of this Editor\u2019s Note was sent out earlier Wednesday in ToI\u2019s weekly update email to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":497565,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[190507,54,85,46,43],"class_list":["post-497564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-2026-us-israel-war-with-iran","tag-donald-trump","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=497564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/497565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}