REP RO KHANNA: Stopping the Iran war is good. But Trump’s deal is worse than the JCPOA

President Trump’s announcement this week that the United States and Iran would temporarily stop fighting each other is welcome news that Americans should support. But the war Trump started was a self-inflicted disaster that cost American lives and burned through taxpayer dollars.

Now, the ceasefire deal he and Vice President Vance negotiated delivers Iran a better deal than the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) Trump spent years ridiculing.

So far, the United States has spent what could be a staggering $200 billion on this war of choice. That is more than the cost of paying for free college for every American, universal childcare for $10 per day, and standing up one thousand new trade schools.

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Instead of Ayatollah Khamenei, Sr., Iran is now led by an even more hardline Ayatollah Khamenei, Jr., who has emerged from the conflict emboldened from using drones and economic chaos to face down the world’s most powerful military.

Worst of all, at least 13 patriotic servicemembers have lost their lives in another senseless Middle Eastern war.

The details of the ceasefire released this week show that Vice President Vance woefully misled Americans on at least five accounts when he claimed the administration’s deal was better than the JCPOA that President Obama negotiated in 2015.

First, under the terms of the deal, Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium is to be diluted inside Iran — not destroyed — contingent on what may prove to be years of difficult diplomatic negotiations. In contrast, the JCPOA forced Iran to ship 98 percent of its enriched uranium out of the country while mandating the remainder be capped at 3.67 percent enrichment, well below weapons-grade threshold.

Second, under Trump’s deal, Iran is allowed to immediately restart exporting oil — roughly 90 percent of which is sent to China — which will bring in a flood of petrodollars, directly funding the Iranian regime. Obama only allowed these exports after Iran shipped its enriched uranium out of the country and was verified to have dismantled core elements of its nuclear program.

Third, after castigating President Obama for unfreezing around $50 billion in Iranian assets, Trump’s deal unfreezes more than $100 billion in blocked Iranian assets payable to any recipient chosen by Tehran.

Fourth, Trump throws the United States’ weight behind a new fund worth at least $300 billion to finance Iran’s reconstruction, which could allow massive sums to flow to rearming Iran’s military — including producing more ballistic missiles and drones — and funding its proxies across the Middle East.

Fifth and finally, Trump’s deal could allow Iran to charge tolls on foreign ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz after 60 days. This would be a historic concession, surrendering a principle that American sailors have died defending while handing Beijing a dangerous new precedent for coercion in the Indo-Pacific.

In short, the president who proclaims to be a master dealmaker has shown once again that negotiating real estate deals simply does not translate into the world of international politics. America had all the cards, and the president played them like an amateur.

A better deal for ending this war would have been anchored in tough diplomacy and economic pressure rather than blunt force.

It would have reassembled the global coalition of allies and partners President Obama built a decade ago to make clear to Tehran that the international community will never tolerate it building a nuclear weapon or charging tolls for safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz. And it would have reestablished intrusive inspections of Iran’s remaining nuclear infrastructure by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Through tough diplomacy, we could have worked with the Lebanese government to ensure Hezbollah can no longer prey upon the Lebanese people and terrorize civilians in northern Israel.

We could have used Iran’s temporary loss of military capabilities as an opportunity to restart negotiations over a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians where Hamas is disarmed and Israel’s Arab neighbors commit to ensuring a future Palestinian state living side-by-side with a secure Israel, as the Arab Peace Plan envisions.

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And we could have pivoted from expensive foreign wars to focusing on a Marshall Plan for America, reindustrializing our heartland in places like Middletown, Ohio and Johnstown, Pennsylvania. An American Marshall Plan would include establishing an American industrial bank to fund domestic manufacturers who make the things we currently import, especially from China.

Leadership that puts diplomacy over militarism strengthens America’s global standing and counteracts China’s attempts to step into the global leadership vacuum the Trump administration has created by its chaos.

The good news for Americans is that, while the Trump-Vance deal is materially weaker than the JCPOA, the fighting has now stopped. Future administrations will need to do the hard work of securing UN Security Council backing for guaranteeing freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz and enforcing Iran’s nuclear disarmament via the IAEA.

The greatest threats to America’s future will not be solved by another Middle Eastern war. The American people want us to focus on Team America. They want us to rebuild our industry, invest in our people, strengthen our alliances to enforce agreements, and provide moral leadership in the world to solve the problems of conflict, hunger, and disease. Leadership that falls short of those aims would be an unforgivable dereliction of duty.

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