The Counterargument to My Pessimism on Iran

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Despite the suggestions that I am irrationally hard on Trump's "deal" with Iran, I really am trying to keep an open mind. My assessment of the situation is based on watching and interpreting Trump's moves during the so-called "ceasefire" with Iran that began on April 7th of this year. I thought the ceasefire was likely a mistake, based on Trump's assurances that  Iran was on the ropes and ready to make a deal. 

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I know that sounds odd. If I thought Trump was right about the conditions, why oppose the ceasefire? Simple: if true, we had them on the ropes. When your mortal enemy is down, keep kicking. 

But, whatever. That is water under the bridge. The question now is whether Trump's signing the Memorandum of Understanding was a good move. While I have made the case that it wasn't, I keep an eye out for arguments that contradict my own, so I thought I would share the optimists' point of view.

I've ignored the people who applaud Trump no matter what he does, for obvious reasons. I wanted to read what hard-headed people whom I trust to be rational say, and there are a few whose opinions I respect who make strong cases. 

Let's look at two arguments that I think have merit: Cynical Publius and James Lindsay. 

RE: Iran

Like many, I am troubled by the verbiage I am seeing in the Iran MOU.

While I am pleased that the USA has eradicated Iran's nuclear and conventional military capabilities, the financial and diplomatic terms of the MOU are unfortunately reminiscent of the kowtowing of the Obama JCPOA.

HOWEVER.

Since 2016, and with only one exception, the actions and decisions of Donald Trump as President have ALWAYS served American interests to a greater degree than any other President in my lifetime.

Thus, I am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and see what happens.

I recommend that rational Trump supporters adopt the same approach.  Wait and see.

(My one "exception" is when Trump trusted Fauci and his hooligan minions during COVID.)

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What I like about this take is that he doesn't try to sugarcoat the bitter pill, but he cautions that we don't yet know whether Dr. Trump is feeding us a placebo, a dangerous medicine, or a drug that will eventually benefit us. We know it tastes horrible right now, but Trump has earned enough trust to wait before we decide that the medicine that tastes terrible actually won't work for us in the end.

Chemotherapy, for instance, famously sucks. But it works remarkably well most of the time. 

On the other hand, he touched on my own still-stinging wound, for which I have yet to fully forgive Trump: on the most important issue during his first term—COVID—he really blew it when it counted. I give him some credit for trying to recover after he realized that fact, but it left a permanent stain on his record in my mind. He trusted Fauci, who sang a siren song that lured America into the rocks. 

That time haunts me. But maybe this time is very different. 

The second argument comes from James Lindsay, who had a very interesting exchange with Cynical Publius that I thought I would share:

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Part of the huge disconnect about the deal, which is a recurring problem with Trump and normal people, is that Trump doesn't see the deal the way we see the deal. It's provisional and contingent to him. You can see this reflected in almost everything he says about it.

The reason for this is that Trump is extremely high-agency, and extremely high-agency people don't worry about making mistakes or whatever else and just do things that seem plausibly good and savvy, which Trump is also very good at.

They do this because they know if things go wrong, they'll just do something else because they're extremely high-agency and extremely confident in their abilities.

A good fighter doesn't get in the ring concerned about if the guy is going to fight in a way he doesn't really expect. He gets in the ring confident in his ability to fight and to adapt to the conditions he's faced with. He "goes according to the situation."

Trump is a good fighter. He goes according to the situation. He doesn't really care much about what's on paper beyond how he can use it in the current play to get advantage and the next play to gain another advantage, even if that means dropping the deal (and bombs).

It's extremely hard to understand this when you prefer guidelines, contracts, certainty. It's even harder to abide it when you feel like you, yourself, are stuck in a dangerous low-agency position with what appears to be a mad king making fatal errors that impact you and yours.

I said something like this yesterday to someone, and the reply was, "you're giving Trump a lot of credit." Well, yeah. Trump's earned a lot of credit, frankly, and in many cases it was by being extremely high-agency Trump while the world bit its nails and melted down ("Rocket Man, everything is gonna be alright... Rocket Man...").

I think it's a good time to breathe and let the man's agency work a bit. If it goes as badly as people fear, there's plenty of time later to hang it around JD's neck and seize a different victory from the jaws of defeat.

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Great post James.

Also, most people also don't understand what a "Memorandum of Understanding" ("MOU") actually is.

Trump is a businessman first and foremost, and I'm a corporate lawyer who has done a lot of financings and mergers, so I think I get where he is coming from.

An MOU is merely an initial framework for deal negotiations.  MOUs are generally non-binding, and they simply chart a path towards a definitive agreement.

Deals fall through all the time even after an MOU is signed, and if the deal actually closes, about 95% of the time the definitive agreement differs materially from the MOU based on diligence and further negotiations.

Trump knows this, and it's how he thinks.

Basically, what James is arguing is that Trump operates so differently from most of us that we just don't get that, to him, the MOU is just a piece of paper. He is making a bet, and if that bet goes sour, he'll just try something else. People like me see him abandoning his war aims, which he and Marco Rubio outlined many times, a number of which now appear to have been tossed out the window. 

Iran's proxies were to be taken off the board, for instance. Getting the nuclear "dust" was a red line, which has become a yellow line now. And it's missile capabilities were to be wiped out. 

For instance:

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Has turned into this: 

People like me set our hair on fire when we hear that, because Rubio is certainly right that missiles and drones matter a whole heck of a lot. So much so that, even without a Navy or Air Force, Iran brought the oil market to its knees, creating the conditions for what Trump predicted would be a Great Depression.

Lindsay's retort is simple: take Trump seriously, but not literally. If he sees things going south, he will change course. He believes that Iran understands his intentions and will behave rationally, and if that turns out not to be true, he will zag after this zig didn't work. 

That's how he has gotten where he is, and it has worked out pretty well for all concerned. We shouldn't take too literally what he says at times, like this:

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As I said yesterday, it all comes down to whether you trust Trump. James, looking at his overall record, says that at least for the moment, he has earned that trust. Criticizing him now, without seeing the end result, is premature and gives us all heartburn. If, in the end, heartburn comes, at least we didn't suffer unnecessarily before it was necessary. 

These aren't the voices of Trump's cheerleaders, although they certainly like Trump; they are making a serious case that we are ignoring how Trump works in the real world. That has been a big mistake often enough, because Trump has a habit of pulling rabbits out of hats. 

Neither is saying that Trump is always right—Cynical Publius rightly points to COVID as a massive screwup. They are just saying that the record is pretty damn good, and far better than any president we have had in many decades. 

On that they are right. I just fear that this is more like COVID. I hope I am very, very wrong. 

And please, don't compare me to NeverTrumpers. That hurts. 

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