On June 17th, during the closing banquet of the G7 summit in Evian against the highly symbolic backdrop of Versailles, Donald Trump, accompanied by his host Emmanuel Macron, initialled a memorandum of understanding
with Tehran. The president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Masoud Pezeshkian, did the same via video-conference in Tehran. The document had already been digitally signed in Geneva on the 14th.
For former diplomat Michel Duclos, this was a surprise
organised by the French presidency, which had taken care to invite Egypt, the UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia to the G7 proceedings. Trump, aware of the criticism within the Republican camp over his backing down in the face of Iran
, and of the fact that his international prestige did not emerge strengthened
from the third Gulf War, was offered a lavish stage on which to save face. Or, in Japanese terms, the path to an honourable surrender
during his little excursion
in the Gulf. For Duclos, the Versailles Agreement
cannot be regarded as a great success for the West
and risks one day evoking the peace of 1871 or 1919
. Fortunately, he adds, the Hall of Mirrors has been avoided
, referring to the site where Bismarck proclaimed Germany's victory over France, and the Entente sealed the Treaty of Versailles and the short-lived twenty-year period of European peace. Nevertheless, it offers Europeans a way to get back in the game in Hormuz
, given that the G7's final communiqué refers to the Franco-British initiative
for an international naval coalition – also including Japan, South Korea, and Australia – to secure the Strait. European diplomats reportedly presented this proposal to Tehran on June 15th, but Iran has so far rejected it. Iran is said to be negotiating with Oman over a mechanism for managing the Strait, proposing an alternative to tolls
, namely the payment of service fees
. This is reminiscent of the arrangements applied by Turkey on the Bosphorus under the 1936 Montreux Convention.
A toll by another name
According to the Financial Times, Iran's assertion of sovereignty over Hormuz serves not only as a means of blackmail, but also to control the transit of military vessels, as is the case in the Bosphorus. Domestically, it may serve to placate the ultra-conservative factions in Tehran who oppose the agreement with Washington; or to influence the leadership that has emerged from the conflict, which is based around the centrist presidency of Pezeshkian, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, and the pragmatic conservative and Speaker of Parliament Mohammad B. Ghalibaf. According to analyst Alex Vatanka of the Middle East Institute (MEI) in Washington, the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), currently Iran's main decision-making body, is akin to a politburo
, in which the main institutional and military bodies are represented.
According to several observers, Ghalibaf – a former mayor of Tehran with links to both Mojtaba Khamenei and the IRGC (the Pasdaran), in which he served – has shown great skill in establishing himself as a wartime leader
, steering internal consensus towards a negotiated solution to the conflict and managing the protests of the delvawasan (the worried ones
, in Persian). The latter, organised within the Jebhe-ye Paydari (Front of the Stability of the Islamic Revolution) faction – which holds 79 of the 290 seats in the Majlis, the legislative body of the Islamic Republic – managed to muster only 30 votes in their challenge to Ghalibaf's re-election as Speaker.
While Tehran's political and military resilience in the face of the joint assault by the US and Israel has exceeded expectations, enabling Iran to become an unavoidable interlocutor
in the Gulf, officials at the Central Bank point out that the economy is the foundation of power
and that structural reforms are needed to consolidate Iran's role. The same position has been expressed by Pezeshkian himself.
If a rose by any other name would smell as sweet
, then, to paraphrase Shakespeare, a toll by any other name
may be less objectionable under the law of the sea, and serve as a bargaining chip Iran can play with the Arab Gulf States and other powers. After all, in an interview with The New York Times, Trump stated that, in exchange for 20% of regional revenues, the US could be the Gulf's policeman upon payment
. Tehran's demands, when it comes down to it, appear modest compared to those of the tycoon. At the press conference in Versailles, he claimed to have averted a nuclear Holocaust
by striking Iran's nuclear programme, and said he did not wish to go down in history as a modern-day Herbert Hoover, given the risk that the Gulf crisis could trigger a global recession
as in 1929. According to Antony Blinken, Joe Biden's former secretary of State, while the end of the conflict is a positive development, Trump's claiming it as his achievement sounds like an arsonist burning down a house halfway and then boasting that he put out the fire
.
It is worth noting that the international relief at the signing of the Versailles Agreement and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz confirms the cynicism of imperialist politics: reopening the Strait of Hormuz is well worth shelving the humanitarian pretext
for the conflict – the Persian horrors
of the brutal repression of domestic protests last January. The agreements, writes Le Monde, effectively amount to a regime re-legitimised at an international level
, and not just by Trump.
The spectre of Kissinger
According to Jonathan Eyal, a diplomatic commentator for Singapore's The Straits Times, if the agreements hold up, they could go down in history as heralding the decline of American credibility and influence
in the region: an ill-conceived
military operation concluded with a half-baked memorandum
in which all objectives of the war are abandoned. While Tehran may not have won, the US has lost another war, with grave consequences for all those
in the region who hitched their fate to, or were dragged along by, Trump's military adventure
.
The Wall Street Journal, a staunch supporter of Trump's war of choice, is now analysing his turn towards appeasement. Trump will present his deal as peace in our time
. But the rest of the world is more likely to see it as a strategic retreat
, after falling short of achieving his war aims
. A positive assessment can point to Tehran's key nuclear infrastructure being in ruins and a halt to uranium enrichment. But it is undeniable that Trump has given up on finishing the job
, which would have required greater military risk
; in view of the midterm elections, he has chosen to prioritise keeping petrol prices down over strategic imperatives
.
On the other hand, Trump's instinct-driven attempt to curtail Iran's nuclear-threshold status was in keeping with American strategic interests as expressed by Kissingerian realism. And by falling back on appeasement after having initiated the conflict, Trump serves as another example of the historical pattern identified by the former secretary of State: Three times in as many generations
the US had abandoned wars midstream
, deeming them wrong or insufficient; in Vietnam due to decisions by Congress, and in Iraq and Afghanistan by choice of the president
[World Order, 2014].
Barnum and Bismarck
For Walter Russell Mead, an interpreter of Trumpian strategy and a former interlocutor of Kissinger, the unresolved issue remains Iran's ambition to pursue its own regional hegemony
and the American determination to prevent it
. The Trumpian deal exemplifies the strengths and weaknesses
of his foreign policy: Trump is a master of political theatre
– producer, director, and star of the the greatest and most compelling spectacle of our time
. But he falls short when it comes to achieving concrete results
, and this is the difference between being a Phineas Taylor Barnum
or an Otto von Bismarck
.
Barnum [1810-1891], a Connecticut congressman, circus entrepreneur, and self-proclaimed charlatan, counts among his famous sayings: No man ever went broke overestimating the ignorance of the American public
. Trump is a cynic
who came by his cynicism honestly
, through his career as a property and television entrepreneur, and has no deep convictions
; this is a strength, given that no statesman can succeed without a healthy dose
of cynicism. The downside is that this very cynicism leads him to underestimate the strength and determination
of his opponents: he fails to grasp the power of nationalism
in both Kyiv and Moscow. Nor does he appreciate Iran's determination and resilience
.
Gulf appeasement via STEP
The Islamic quartet that has consolidated around the Saudi-Pakistani military alliance, extended to include Qatar, has been renamed STEP (Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, and Pakistan). However, according to La Stampa, Riyadh reportedly refers to it as the Agreements of Muhammad
and sees it as the tombstone
of the Abraham Accords
. This assessment may be premature, given that in Washington the possibility is being raised of supporting a Saudi nuclear programme, which had been Riyadh's incentive for normalising relations with Israel.
The STEP framework could serve as the vehicle for negotiating normalisation with both Tehran and Tel Aviv. Hakan Fidan, Ankara's foreign minister, suggests this path in an interview with Nikkei: once the situation in the Gulf has normalised
, this regional association would be open to both Iran and Israel, and could even support Israel's security
if it accepted the existence of a Palestinian State based on 1967 borders
. According to Dorothée Schmid of the IFRI, in their hesitation to withdraw from the region, the US has established
a coalition of middle powers
placed in a position of responsibility
: Any future regional security agreement will have to take their military capabilities into account
. Trump is reportedly counting on Doha and Abu Dhabi to set up
a $300 billion
fund for private investment in Iran: a carrot to persuade Tehran to accept a deal on the nuclear issue. In practice, this amounts to asking the Arab allies to pay for a war they did not want and which was imposed on them
. However, she adds, Doha is working discreetly on a second agreement
at the regional level, with the objective of establishing a relationship of economic interdependence
with Tehran.
Le Figaro refers to a 6+3+1
format: the six oil-rich monarchies, the Egyptian-Turkish-Pakistani trio, and Iran. According to the French daily, a delegation from the UAE reportedly travelled to Tehran on June 11th, proposing investments worth $20 billion – an option that Riyadh is said to be open to. Appeasement is one variant of balance-of-power politics: in Arabic it is called tahdi'a
and in Persian momasahat
. Until the next turn of the wheel of fire.