Audio By Carbonatix

There are times, however distasteful it may be, when this country is obliged to accommodate and maybe sign agreements with unsavory regimes, but it should do so without illusions. Such regimes don’t change their nature just because they have inked some sort of deal with the U.S. Such a signature may be a tactical necessity, or a tactical opportunity, but it is highly unlikely to signify any change to their longer-term strategic aims.

President Trump’s boosterish assurances about the greatness of the Iran cease-fire made it sound like he thought, to the contrary, that the Islamic Republic of Iran had indeed turned over a new leaf.

Obviously, before Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signed the memorandum of understanding supposedly establishing a cease-fire in the Gulf, Iran was a revolutionary state set on spreading its revolution by whatever means it could. It loathed the West and was intent on wiping out Israel. And none of that changed when he signed the MOU. To believe otherwise would be remarkably naïve. President Trump told a reporter that his reason for concluding that the Iranian leadership were “scum” rather than, as he had said previously, “very rational people, nice to deal with, strong and smart” was that he had gotten “to know them.”

Really? What more is there to learn about the nature of an Islamic regime based, to a significant extent, on hostility to the United States?

True to form, it appears that the erstwhile “very rational people” may have reignited the war with the U.S. by firing on three commercial vessels traveling through the Strait of Hormuz. They had, the Iranians maintained, taken the “wrong” course through the strait, a nonsensical claim that should not be allowed to obscure Tehran’s serious breach of the MOU. Under that agreement, Iran was obliged to use its “best efforts” to ensure the “safe, toll-free passage of commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz for 60 days.” The attacks, which presumably were ordered mainly to bully others planning to pass through the strait, were the opposite of that.

In response, the U.S. hit back with strikes against targets in Iran, which, in the view of NATO Secretary General Marc Rutte, was an “absolutely necessary” response to Iran’s breach of the MOU, as indeed it was. The U.S. has also reinstated sanctions on Iranian oil sales, and Trump has said that he thinks the cease-fire deal is over. The oil price jumped, and stocks slumped on the news. The U.S. has just announced further strikes.

After the MOU was signed in June, we noted that it was “lopsided in Iran’s favor.” What events since then, including these latest Iranian attacks, have underlined is that the Iranians would not only cheat, but also use the MOU as a “base” from which they could by a series of ever-greater provocations expand their sway within the region and undercut our ability to rein them in. Their ability to do so would be considerably enhanced by the cash that, under the terms of the MOU, is supposed to be heading Tehran’s way. Moreover, the countdown to the midterms will do nothing to discourage Tehran from seeing how far it can go.

If there’s one thing Trump has demonstrated during this whole episode with Iran, it’s that he’s perfectly capable of changing his tack. He should use the opportunity presented by Tehran’s actions to do it yet again. The president should make clear to the Iranians that he is prepared to discuss a new deal, but only one that genuinely delivers freedom of navigation in the strait in a way the first cease-fire and the MOU have not. This demand should be a nonnegotiable backed by force of U.S. arms.

Accepting effective Iranian control of the strait was a formula for heartburn and humiliation, and so it’s proved.