By admin 
Seventy-nine years ago this month, at Harvard University, Secretary of State George C. Marshall announced a plan for the reconstruction of Europe. The Marshall Plan, as it quickly became known, committed more than $13 billion for Europe’s postwar recovery—approximately $150 billion in today’s dollars. Donald Trump’s deal with Iran, which he signed yesterday in Versailles, commits the United States and its regional partners to ensuring that Iran receives “at least $300 billion” for its “rehabilitation and economic development.”
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This is, in effect, a Marshall Plan for the Iranian regime, albeit not one funded with American taxpayer dollars. But whereas the original was designed to consolidate an American victory, this one is designed to manage the consequences of a defeat that pushes the United States closer to disengaging from the Middle East.
The text of the memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iran is remarkably vague. Point one commits the United States and Iran to regional peace and stability. Vice President Vance told CNN that this means Iran will stop funding proxy forces and destabilizing the region; Tehran might well interpret that differently. The text does reiterate Iran’s commitment not to build a nuclear weapon, and it says that Iran agrees to “downblend” its highly enriched uranium on-site (which basically means diluting it). But the memorandum includes no other details regarding limits on enrichment. It says that Iran will not charge a toll for passage through the Strait of Hormuz for the next 60 days, but after that, nothing is specified.
When asked about the $300 billion, Vance claimed that the Gulf countries would supply it all. But the deal makes no such provision. It tasks the United States and its regional partners to develop the plan. Perhaps this is why a senior administration official told CNN that “people should not read too much into the language.” The official went on to describe the memorandum as a political document, saying, of the Iranians, “We came up with language that allows them to say what they need for their domestic politics.” But Iran will almost certainly demand that the United States stick to the letter of the agreement.
What we do know is that the relief for Iran is to come in stages. An immediate waiver of sanctions will allow it to export oil. This is a return to the arrangement under the Obama-era nuclear deal and is estimated to be worth up to $60 billion a year. Once the memorandum is implemented but before a final deal, Iran’s frozen assets will be released for it to spend as it seems fit. This reportedly consists of $24 billion held in banks in Qatar, Oman, and Iraq, although Tehran believes that its total inaccessible assets worldwide may exceed $100 billion. Only if a final agreement follows on this provisional one will Iran be provided with $300 billion and the lifting of all sanctions, including those linked to terrorism, its ballistic-missile program, and human-rights abuses. But Iran will already have received quite a lot up front.
The prospect of a final deal is remote, given the gap between the two sides. History is replete with wars that end in interim agreements, deferring difficult issues to future negotiations, only for the interim arrangement to become permanent. That is very likely to happen here.
When it does, Trump will face a choice. He can applaud the downblending of uranium and accept the new status quo. Or he can end the waivers and reimpose sanctions on oil. If he chooses the second course, Iran will, at a minimum, begin to charge a toll for transit through the strait, using the leverage it gained in the war. Things could spiral from there, but Trump has been clear that he wants out of the war and fears the economic consequences of a closed strait. That won’t change as the midterms approach. The Iranians surely know this, which makes it even less likely that they will compromise further.
The deal is a bad one. But Washington has no good choices at this point. Judged by the administration’s own objectives, the outcome is difficult to describe as anything other than a defeat. The United States entered the conflict seeking to eliminate Iran’s leverage, constrain its regional influence, and force it to accept strict limits on its nuclear program. Instead, Iran emerged with sanctions relief, a pathway to generous reconstruction financing, continuing ambiguity over key nuclear issues, and new leverage over the Strait of Hormuz.
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The reason for this defeat was not a reluctance to use force. Many hawks advocated introducing ground troops, but doing so would have made matters much worse. The United States almost certainly would have wound up fighting the sort of casualty-heavy counterinsurgency campaign that has led it to costly defeats elsewhere. If the U.S. had attacked Iran’s civilian infrastructure, Iran would have retaliated against infrastructure in the Gulf, widening the war and exponentially worsening the global economic shock waves.
This was a war that should never have been fought. It was also fought foolishly. Beginning the campaign with a decapitation strike on the Iranian leadership made the conflict existential for the Iranian regime, which then had no reason to hold anything back. By contrast, the 12-day war last summer had the limited objective of destroying Iran’s nuclear program; knowing this, Tehran tempered its response to avoid a protracted all-out war with the United States. It did not do then what it did this winter: attack the Gulf states and close the Strait of Hormuz. Trump made no preparation to deal with these responses, even though they were widely predicted.
The memorandum of understanding may not even encapsulate the most important of Iran’s gains from this American blunder: The war could well mark the end of America’s will to play a security role in the Middle East. Domestic support for the U.S. alliance with Israel is in free fall. U.S. bases in the Middle East have been badly damaged, their vulnerability as targets exposed. Trump and his successors will be reluctant to use force against Iran in the future, knowing, as is now clear, that doing so will likely trigger the closure of the strait and an economic crisis. And Americans could be forgiven for feeling that they have tried every kind of policy in the Middle East over the past quarter century—war, diplomacy, working with civil society, building up regional partnerships, pushing various players to sign accords with one another—and watched them all fail.
No one should be under any illusion that an American withdrawal from the Middle East will make the region more peaceful or stable. The Israel-Iran rivalry would likely intensify, resulting in regular closures of the strait and possibly more wars. New rivalries, including one between Israel and Turkey, would no doubt fester and grow. The situation of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank would almost certainly worsen and become more hopeless. Russia and China would increase their influence and strategic presence.
But right now, those who favor American engagement in the Middle East have very little to work with. Israel is perceived as trigger-happy and indifferent to U.S. interests, and many Americans have come to see the region as a strategic black hole.
That might change if a new Israeli government comes to power, especially one led by a mainstream critic of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war policy, such as retired General Gadi Eisenkot, who has been rising in recent polls. Then the United States could possibly be persuaded to reengage: to help build energy infrastructure that circumvents the Strait of Hormuz and to return to the project of normalizing Israeli-Saudi ties, for which progress for Palestinians is a precondition.
But the window for such a shift is very narrow. For two decades, Washington has debated how to engage with this volatile region. Now many Americans question whether they should engage at all. If that sentiment hardens, Trump’s agreement with Iran may be remembered as the moment the United States began its withdrawal from the Middle East.
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