{"id":756,"date":"2026-06-20T14:09:33","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T14:09:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=756"},"modified":"2026-06-20T14:09:33","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T14:09:33","slug":"trumps-second-gamble-on-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=756","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s Second Gamble on Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Donald Trump\u2019s war against Iran began with one gamble and ended with another. Initially, the president bet that he could stop Iran\u2019s nuclear ambitions by bombing Iran\u2019s revolutionary regime out of existence. So he spent tens of billions of dollars, and upended the global economy, only to sign a memorandum of understanding undoubtedly weaker than any deal he could have struck before the war. Embedded in this document is a new gamble: that if Iran\u2019s revolutionaries can\u2019t be dislodged by force, they might instead be bribed to abandon their identity.<\/p>\n

Read more The Eternal Allure of the Rabbit Hole<\/a><\/p>\n

The memorandum offers a bundle of American inducements so lopsided that it reads as if Tehran wrote the plan unilaterally. Of its 14 provisions, 13 either amount to diplomatic boilerplate or heavily favor Iran on their face. Tehran will receive military and economic concessions\u2014and de facto acknowledgment of its control over the Strait of Hormuz\u2014in exchange for a concession that it will not develop or buy nuclear weapons. Never mind that Iran has made and ignored such promises before, and the CIA doubts its sincerity now.<\/p>\n

The humiliation of the memorandum is doubly egregious for Trump, who withdrew from Barack Obama\u2019s multinational agreement to limit Iran\u2019s nuclear programs. Trump called that agreement the \u201cworst deal ever negotiated,\u201d but it was less costly to America, was less generous to Iran, and offered more concrete nonproliferation guarantees. Trump is paying far more for far less.<\/p>\n

He has acted like a poker player who believes his own bluffs. Trump vowed to raze Iran\u2019s missile industry to the ground; defang its proxy militias, such as Hezbollah; unseat its regime; choose its next leader; and control the Strait of Hormuz. While none of his maximalist war goals were achieved, Trump celebrated the cease-fire, and lifting of the blockade, as if he had had no role in creating the whole mess in the first place.<\/p>\n

The Islamic Republic, one of the world\u2019s most brutal, isolated, and unpopular regimes, has emerged with its economy and military further decimated but its confidence restored. On the eve of the war, it was a bankrupt global pariah that had just massacred thousands of its own people\u2014perhaps tens of thousands\u2014to crush a national uprising. Today it celebrates having defied America and Israel, and basks in Western commentary that it is a rising power.<\/p>\n

Virtually every American president since the 1979 Iranian Revolution has wanted to improve relations between Washington and Tehran. Doing so would be in the national interest of both America and Iran, but no administration has achieved this outcome. Iran\u2019s revolutionary theocracy thrives in isolation and has made resistance against the United States and its ally Israel central to the regime\u2019s identity, its internal legitimacy, and the cohesion of its security forces.<\/p>\n

Having assassinated the regime\u2019s top leadership, Trump is now trying not only to negotiate a new nuclear deal but to engineer a grand bargain that transforms U.S.-Iran relations. But he is hedging his own bet by putting J. D. Vance in charge of the effort. Vance recently told The New York Times<\/em> that Tehran\u2019s new elite are rethinking the revolution and coalescing around a new consensus that \u201c47 years of Iran policy towards the United States has been a mistake.\u201d Trump, however, has made no secret of his calculations. \u201cIf it works out, I\u2019m going to take the credit,\u201d he said earlier this week. \u201cIf it doesn\u2019t work out, I\u2019m blaming J. D.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vance\u2019s political future may rest as much on Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officers as on Republican-primary voters. One of Vance\u2019s hopes to lead Iran\u2019s ideological transformation is Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, a former IRGC general and the current speaker of Iran\u2019s Parliament. The two men spent more than 20 hours together in Islamabad earlier this year and reportedly built a private rapport. Yet Qalibaf\u2019s recent public speeches and interviews\u2014mocking America, praising Hezbollah, threatening Israel, and hailing partnership with China\u2014will likely prove to be a truer barometer of Tehran\u2019s intentions than any private assurances of goodwill.<\/p>\n

There are other major obstacles to normalization. The memorandum suggests that Iran could get $300 billion in investment, ostensibly from the same Gulf countries that were just on the receiving end of thousands of Iranian missiles. \u201cIt\u2019s presumptuous for the U.S. to commit other people\u2019s money,\u201d Ali Shihabi, an adviser to Saudi leadership, told me. \u201cGulf countries should not be paying reparations for a war they did not want.\u201d A Gulf diplomat was much blunter. \u201cThey\u2019re not going to get a penny from us,\u201d he told me.<\/p>\n

Read more Are GLP-1s Performance-Enhancing Drugs?<\/a><\/p>\n

The logic of Trump\u2019s current gamble with Iran resembles his entreaties to the North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un during Trump\u2019s first term: The president is offering reintegration as a reward for denuclearization. In Singapore, Trump famously tried to entice Kim with visions of turning North Korea\u2019s missile-testing coastlines into prime real estate, marveling at the country\u2019s \u201cgreat beaches\u201d and envisioning \u201cthe best hotels in the world.\u201d But for revolutionary dictatorships such as North Korea and Iran, Western-backed luxury hotels, foreign tourists, and open capital flows aren\u2019t a triumph\u2014they are a Trojan horse that would erode their total information control and ideological legitimacy.<\/p>\n

The memorandum calls for 60 days of negotiations, but virtually no one expects a nuclear agreement\u2014let alone the end of a 47-year U.S.-Iran cold war\u2014to come about so quickly. So the war may not be over; it might merely be paused. Tehran will try to rebuild its missiles and proxies, which won\u2019t be part of any agreement. According to reports, it still retains as much as 70 percent of its prewar missile stockpile and its mobile launchers. It still produces large quantities of missiles and drones.<\/p>\n

Tehran\u2019s new leadership is not moderating the regime\u2019s internal conduct. Parastoo Ahmadi, a 29-year-old singer, was recently sentenced to 74 lashes for performing a concert publicly without a hijab. Security forces have stepped up persecution of the Baha\u2019i religious minority. And dozens of political prisoners have been fast-tracked to the gallows. In other words, there are no visible signs on the ground to bolster Trump\u2019s argument that the regime has become \u201cvery rational\u201d and is \u201cnot radicalized.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aside from the Iranian people, the Gulf countries that sought to befriend Trump have been the biggest losers. Their previously vibrant economies were sabotaged by Iran\u2019s $20,000 drones. Given the existential threat they feel from Tehran, they will have no choice but to rely more than ever on America\u2019s security umbrella\u2014while also being forced, at the same time, to cut their own side deals with Iran.<\/p>\n

Trump has recently metamorphosed from an Iran hawk into an Iran apologist, defending the Islamic Republic\u2019s missile program and lauding Mojtaba Khamenei\u2014an ideological carbon copy of the hard-line father whom Trump assassinated\u2014as respected and pragmatic. The president\u2019s incoherence has become a source of gallows humor among Iranians. \u201cTrump went to delete Ayatollah Khamenei,\u201d one Iranian told me, \u201cbut he accidentally pressed \u2018Update.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps the peace deal is just a tactical retreat. \u201cIf he doesn\u2019t like where this is going, he will go back to the blockade or bombing them,\u201d a senior administration official told me. \u201cAnd oil prices will be much lower.\u201d Yet Trump, who has clearly wearied of the economic disruptions that his war has caused, may not want to gamble on renewed hostilities with Iran.<\/p>\n

U.S. presidents typically begin to understand the nature of the Islamic Republic only at the end of their term. Ever since the 1979 revolution and the subsequent hostage crisis ruined Jimmy Carter\u2019s reelection campaign, Tehran has prided itself on sabotaging American chief executives. This time it may get a two-for-one: the presidency of Donald Trump, and the presidential ambitions of J. D. Vance.<\/p>\n

Read more The Forgotten Founding Father<\/a><\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If the regime can\u2019t be dislodged by force, maybe it can be bribed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":755,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ideas"],"yoast_head":"\nTrump\u2019s Second Gamble on Iran - Commercial Relocation Pros<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=756\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Trump\u2019s Second Gamble on Iran - Commercial Relocation Pros\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If the regime can\u2019t be dislodged by force, maybe it can be bribed.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=756\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Commercial Relocation Pros\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-20T14:09:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=756#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=756\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/3a3374a445f1b5d4852b1d7c15b9fe3a\"},\"headline\":\"Trump\u2019s Second Gamble on Iran\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-20T14:09:33+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=756\"},\"wordCount\":1345,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=756#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/8cb2d9e153ab1284c75b25fa81546829.avif\",\"articleSection\":[\"Ideas\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=756#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=756\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/commercialrelocationpros.com\\\/?p=756\",\"name\":\"Trump\u2019s Second Gamble on Iran - 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