“Sophomore” is often quipped to mean “wise fool,” as a play on the Greek root words sophos and moros. With his negotiation of the “agreement to agree” with Iran, Vice President JD Vance offers a fitting modern example of sophomoric ceasefire negotiations.
First, some background. The joint American-Israeli bombing of Iran was an overwhelming success. In just five weeks, Iran was on its back. A few more weeks of strikes on newly identified missile sites, along with the elimination of additional Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leadership, could well have forced a de facto surrender.
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Indeed, had bombing continued, Iran would have been incapable of closing the Strait of Hormuz, its strongest card in cease-fire talks. Nonetheless, America’s naval blockade was strangling Iran into what should have been a humiliating submission. This portended a new era of world peace, with China — Western society’s only likely major aggressor — isolated and unlikely to invade Taiwan, where burgeoning American AI wealth is vulnerably based.
JD VANCE IS EITHER DISHONEST OR DELUSIONAL IN TOUTING IRAN DEAL
President Donald Trump was on track to become the fifth face on Mt. Rushmore as a world-historical strategist of peace, arguably as significant as the great Winston Churchill. And Vance could have coasted into the presidency as a Trump supporter, notwithstanding his dim, isolationist view of the war, thus covering all bases.
Now Trump faces the “TACO” charge as a feckless and irrational leader. He was first allegedly duped into following Israel’s lead, only to cower over the petty issue of politically unpopular gas prices, which would have been only temporary with continued operations.
Unfortunately, after the brilliant initial campaign, Trump threw in his lot with Vance, naming him as chief negotiator, Iran’s understandably first choice. Clearly, Vance and his allies had convinced Trump that a quick exit, forgoing regime change, would be popular, bringing down pump prices and meeting security needs, Israel notwithstanding. But buying into Vance’s ideas and sophomoric negotiating strategy now portends the ruination of Trump’s legacy.
A cardinal rule of Trump’s Art of the Deal is that a negotiator cannot signal that he needs the deal and can’t walk away. One therefore had reasonably assumed that Vance would at least know how to shrug his shoulders at impasse and say, “Okay, make Trump’s day. We will resume bombing.” So as a deal appeared on and off, the inference was that a skilled Vance would have gained concession after concession, each won after credibly threatening resumption of the hostilities. The occasional sporadic American bombing lent support for this reasonable conclusion.
With the release of the deal, however, it now appears that the party that continued to make valuable concessions, to pay for the continuation of talks, was not the devastated Iran but the dominant United States, courtesy of the callow Vance. In short, Vance made it clear that he needed the deal more than the powerless Iran did, and continually paid to keep the process ongoing, without satisfactory resolution.
Vance’s naive view of the existential stakes of the conflict was betrayed by his insouciant remark to podcaster Megyn Kelly a day before the deal terms were released, to wit, after sixty days, even with no completed deal, the “country can get on with our lives.” The war, in Vance’s simplistic view, was a needless bother that drove up gas prices for his anti-war MAGA bros.
But today, unlike before the bombing, America has given billions to enrich the Guard at the stroke of a pen, in unfrozen assets and sanctions-free oil sales. Appallingly, Vance seemingly agreed to place American clamps on Israel in Lebanon, without any Iranian reciprocation for Hezbollah. In essence, Vance threw Israel to the wolves, with the Gulf countries not far behind.
Did Vance think for a moment that giving Iran the right to charge “fees” for passage through the Strait of Hormuz would mean his MAGA bros might still suffer high gas prices? This sophomore, too cool for school, is clearly not a chess master. This deal ignores a basic reality: the Guard, now enriched rather than disabled, has repeatedly vowed retaliation for the killing of its commanders, including Qasem Soleimani.
Yet at this pivotal moment, the administration rushed into negotiations that offered billions without even securing a turnover of enriched uranium. With billions in cash, Iran is free to develop missiles, including ICBMs that can soon reach New York and Washington, D.C.
AMERICA’S SUICIDE PACT: WHY THE REPUBLIC MAY NOT SURVIVE ANOTHER 250 YEARS
Rather than begging for over two months to get a bad deal, America could, in fact, have forced a satisfactory, effective surrender in one month without Iran’s consent. The deal leaves us in a world in which Hezbollah is on a tear in Lebanon, and Iran is hitting ships and American military installations as we speak, apparently convinced that Vance won’t walk away.
I reasonably suggest that the president read his own book, declare the Iran deal over, and renew his spectacular campaign, giving midterm voters a principled reason to support his agenda.
John D. O’Connor is a former federal prosecutor and the San Francisco attorney who represented W. Mark Felt during his revelation as Deep Throat in 2005. O’Connor is the author of the books Postgate: How the Washington Post Betrayed Deep Throat, Covered Up Watergate and Began Today’s Partisan Advocacy Journalism and The Mysteries of Watergate: What Really Happened. O’Connor and Mark Felt also collaborated on the 2006 book, A G-Man’s Life.
