Mr. President, Publish Your Deal
Vice President J.D. Vance is frustrated. He wants his fellow Republicans to calm down and trust the U.S.-Iran negotiations. The problem is that so many in Washington now are trashing the memorandum of understanding, or MOU, that the president announced Sunday, without knowing all the facts. This crowd is “criticizing a deal based on unconfirmed media reports,” the vice president posted on X. What’s more, Vance added, politicians and journalists who insist that one cannot trust a word Iran’s regime says now “apparently believe anonymously sourced social media posts.”
We understand why Vance is concerned. If the reports from Iran’s official news agencies are correct, then he and the president have just capitulated to the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. Over the weekend, the Iranian state-run Mehrs News agency reported that over the 60-day negotiations period, Iran’s regime will receive $24 billion worth of unfrozen assets, $12 billion of which will reach their coffers before the talks even start.
It also says the U.S. will withdraw all of its forces in the region, and pledge to respect the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran. What’s more, according to the Mehrs version of events, the MOU makes clear that discussions about Iran’s ballistic missiles and support for terrorist proxy groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon are not topics of negotiations. Speaking of Lebanon, Mehrs also reports that the ceasefire applies to Israel’s war against Hezbollah, a major concession that Trump appears to have already conceded based on his social media vituperations on Sunday.
If these are the actual terms of the MOU, then Iran has humiliated Trump. The president would effectively be paying tribute for the privilege of even talking to his adversary’s envoys.
Let the American people read for themselves
the deal that the president assured us on
Sunday had achieved peace with Iran
and the region.
Vance says these reports are disinformation. “The hard-liners in the Iranian system will overemphasize the benefits that Iran gets while underemphasizing all the things they have to concede, and all the things they have to provide, in order to get these benefits,” he told CBS News on Monday morning.
We feel Vance’s pain. No Iranian outlet should be trusted. The problem for Vance is that his boss, President Trump, has been an unreliable narrator for his second Iran war. For example, last night, Trump announced that the Strait of Hormuz is now open. As of Monday afternoon, most of the ships anchored in the waterway remained stranded. Trump announced that the strait was open on April 7 for a two-week ceasefire that never materialized.
The good news for Vance and Trump is that there is an easy solution to the trust gap that now bedevils them on the eve of negotiations with Iran: Publish the memo. Let the American people read for themselves the deal that the president assured us on Sunday had achieved peace with Iran and the region. If the Iranians are lying about what they need to do to earn sanctions relief and access to frozen assets, publish the paper that proves it.
If the MOU is as great as Vance and Trump claim, this should be an easy political decision. But if the agreement they have just entered is closer to the Iranian version, we understand the desire to keep the details under wraps. Sooner or later, though, Congress will have its say and those details will be public. Better to get ahead of the story now than be forced to explain why yesterday’s spin was misleading.
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