Donald Trump claims to have mastered the Art of the Deal, but he has just given us a master class in negotiating incompetence. I would love to see an Iranian government that no longer represses its people, menaces its neighbors, or can build a nuclear weapon. Trump has set back all of these efforts. His cabinet of sycophants offered little resistance as he naively bombed first and faced reality later.

Trump is reviewing and tinkering with a proposed memorandum of understanding (MOU) drafted by American and Iranian diplomats with the aid of Pakistan and Qatar. It would continue the current ceasefire for 60 days while a more permanent peace accord is negotiated. The precise contours of this preliminary agreement are not known, but its gist seems clear – and is a profound embarrassment for Trump. His unprovoked war of choice has accomplished all of nothing. A new approach is urgently needed.

The best way to assess Trump’s quandary is by comparing it with what a less bellicose approach might have secured. Trump says he wants to deny Iran a nuclear weapon, but Tehran has repeatedly disavowed that goal. Rather, the real issue, given broad distrust of Iran’s clerical leaders, is how to prohibit them from obtaining the means to build a bomb.

That’s what Barack Obama’s 2015 deal with the Iranians did. The joint comprehensive plan of action, or JCPOA, curtailed their nuclear program subject to intrusive international inspections. It contained sunset clauses, but they could have been extended by further agreement. Yet Trump withdrew from that accord in 2018, vowing to pressure Iran into a better deal. It didn’t work.

The JCPOA had allowed Iran to enrich uranium to only a minimal 3.67% – a far cry from the 90% needed for a nuclear weapon. Iran sent 11 tonnes of uranium that had been modestly enriched above the lower level to Russia, leaving it no path to build a bomb.

Trump’s revocation of the JCPOA removed these limits. That enabled Iran to produce nearly half a ton of highly enriched uranium at a purity of 60% percent. That is a short hop from the enrichment needed for a bomb.

Trump is now back at square one. He is trying to persuade Iran again to limit its enrichment program and to export or dilute its enriched uranium – in other words, to do what it agreed to do with Obama. That was the subject of negotiations in February of this year, but Trump abruptly ended those talks in favor of war.

Trump’s hope was to bomb and sanction Iran into submission. On the urging of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, American and Israeli........

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