Avi Benlolo: Trump hands Iran victory

JOINT BASE ANDREWS, MARYLAND - JUNE 18: U.S. President Donald Trump walks off Air Force One on June 18, 2026 at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. Trump spent the last few days attending the G7 summit in Evian, France, near the Swiss border, for their annual summit to discuss challenges to peace and security for Ukraine and Europe, the situation in the Middle East, and other geopolitical issues. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

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The Iranian nuclear threat remains. This week, the Tehran Times blared, “having failed to achieve his goals in the joint U.S.-Israel war on Iran, Trump is now attempting to disguise the setback as a victory.” The regime’s mouthpiece went on to say that Iran’s military leadership is declaring the war a strategic “military victory over U.S.-Israeli military aggression.” That’s because in its current form, the memorandum of understanding (MOU) between Iran and the U.S. is heavily weighted toward Iran’s benefit.

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Iran may have suffered immeasurable defeat these past couple of years. Its navy has been sunk, its air defences have been destroyed and its nuclear and missile sites have been pulverized. Most significantly, the Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has been killed alongside many of Iran’s top leaders who were responsible for the atrocities committed against Israel on October 7 and some 40,000 Iranian civilians at the start of 2026.

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Iran has suffered punishing blows. However, its blockage of the Strait of Hormuz was a checkmate move impacting global economy. The oil oligarchy in the Gulf and western leaders were begging for an agreement lest their economies fail. This MOU proves the Iranians are better negotiators than even Donald Trump. Instead of going full throttle and destroying Iran’s ability to hold the Strait of Hormuz, the president fell into Iran’s negotiating trap, giving up on his own red lines.

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Trump was prophetic when he said in 2020, “Iran never won a war, but never lost a negotiation!”

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The Iranians have a knack for kicking the can down the road in order to tire their negotiating opponent and biding time to achieve desired results. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2015 took 18 months to negotiate under the Obama administration. While the current president now claims victory, the regime press is openly saying, “enemy forces failed to attain any of their stated objectives and did not approach Iranian territorial waters.”

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The deal with Iran is so bad that even Israel was excluded from seeing drafts and then the final signed agreement until days later. The deal is a complete capitulation to the barbaric Mullahs, no different from Joe Biden’s running scared withdrawal from Afghanistan. Without taking Israel’s security concerns into account vis-à-vis Hezbollah, the deal demands “the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including Lebanon.”

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Moreover, the Trump deal is vague about Iran’s nuclear development. Even while stopping Iran from attaining nuclear weapons was ostensibly the central reason Trump went to war, the MOU waits until the 8th paragraph to declare that “the Islamic Republic of Iran reaffirms that it shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons.” The document promises that Iran and the U.S. have agreed to resolve “the disposition of stockpiled enriched material” under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency — an organization that has proven ineffective in the past.

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That statement by itself would have sounded definite if it was not muddied in the very next paragraph by the following clarification: “The Islamic Republic of Iran will maintain the current status quo of its nuclear program, and the United States of America will not impose any new sanctions and will not deploy additional forces in the region.” If past behaviour dictates future behaviour, Iran will use this clause to keep negotiating, thus keeping its nuclear assets while benefitting from sanction relief.