The setback to the peace process comes as Trump is being mocked by critics at home — including Republican lawmakers and conservative bloggers, not to mention Israel and its supporters — over a 14-point U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding dubbed the “surrender document.”
TOI correspondent from Washington: The White House on Friday postponed Vice President J.D. Vance’s scheduled visit to Switzerland to formally sign a memorandum of understanding and begin talks with an Iranian team after Israel and Hezbollah continued their fight in southern Lebanon, demonstrating once again that peace in the Middle East may be a messy mirage.
Vance, who put his political future on the line as President Trump’s aide in the controversial deal, had long been on standby to travel to an official signing ceremony and an initial round of talks. He will clearly remain on guard after Israel defied Trump’s message — encouraging everyone in the Middle East “to maintain their commitment to allowing our negotiations to unfold beautifully” — and responded to what it called Hezbollah’s provocations.
On Friday morning, hours after the start of Vance’s trip, the two sides agreed to renew the ceasefire.The setback to the peace process comes as Trump is being mocked by critics at home — including Republican lawmakers and conservative bloggers, not to mention Israel and its supporters — over a 14-point U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding dubbed the “surrender document.” The initial agreement, which Trump signed remotely in Versailles after attending the G7 summit, was intended to launch a 60-day race toward comprehensive peace.
Instead, it sparked an internal political storm.While the Trump administration insists that the MOU is a much better masterstroke than Barack Obama’s 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, political experts dispute that claim, asserting that while Obama’s deal was a highly detailed technical dossier consisting of several hundred pages, Trump’s sloppy, page-and-a-half version gives the gist of the matter to Tehran in exchange for a handshake.
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill – including many staunch Republican loyalists who normally treat Trump’s words as gospel – have begun to rebel.
Republican Senator Bill Cassidy was among those who broke ranks in harsh criticism, calling the deal “the worst foreign policy mistake in decades.” Late-night comedians and social media trolls are having a field day comparing the deal to “winning the war and losing the receipt.”
Although much of the ridicule is partisan, the more serious problem for the White House is that criticism is no longer limited to Democrats.Trump himself has compounded these embarrassing views with a series of statements that have horrified pro-Israel elements in the United States, including supporting Iran’s right to retain “some” of its ballistic missile capabilities and downplaying Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium. The US President also implicitly acknowledges Iran’s right to have a civilian nuclear program – which constitutes a departure from his previous pledge that the United States “will not allow any uranium enrichment” – while remaining steadfast on never allowing it to possess a nuclear weapon.
An angry Trump on Friday morning rejected the idea that he had capitulated to Iran and would give them a financial windfall, asserting: “We didn’t meet out of desperation. Iran did it. They’re done! We’ll make it 60 days. They won’t get any money, not a dime.”Meanwhile, the postponement of Vance’s trip to Switzerland upended the regional arrangement of mediators, as Pakistan, which had positioned itself as the chief diplomatic mediator and proudly hosted the direct talks in April, suddenly found itself in a bind.
Officials in Islamabad were eagerly hoping to play the role of ultimate geopolitical handmaiden to the United States. Iran is on its way to achieving a massive international victory.
Instead, Qatar’s sudden emergence as a favored and deep-pocketed mediator has left Pakistan standing in the lurch, like a wedding guest discovering that the party has moved elsewhere.However, the real victim of the agreement is the internal peace of the MAGA coalition itself.
In a heated press conference, Vance took off the diplomatic gloves and directly criticized Jerusalem, telling Israeli officials they needed to “wake up and smell the reality of the situation,” while bluntly reminding the Israeli Cabinet that two-thirds of their defensive weapons are paid for by American taxpayers. “If I were in the government of the Israeli government, I might not attack the only strong ally I have left anywhere in the entire world,” he said.
This public confrontation highlights the sudden breakdown in relations between the MAGA White House and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. As the next elections approach, the Israeli Prime Minister has refused to withdraw Israeli army forces from southern Lebanon, effectively rejecting the ceasefire announced by Trump. This unprecedented rift leaves US-Israel relations in uncharted hostile territory.