US and Iran Reach Deal to Open the Strait of Hormuz

The US and Iran announced a new deal to halt the fighting and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. And while the details of the agreement haven’t been made public what's clear is that Donald Trump has failed to achieve almost every one of his goals in this war. The future of Iran’s nuclear program, for example, has yet to be decided.
The issue still has to be negotiated over the course of a new sixty-day ceasefire set to begin after the signing of this framework agreement in Switzerland on Friday. But when Trump announced that a deal had been reached yesterday he didn’t mention any of that.
Instead, you had him celebrating the possibility of a return to the pre-war status quo—writing on social media:

“I hereby fully authorize the toll free opening of the Strait of Hormuz, and, simultaneously herewith, authorize the immediate removal of the United States Naval blockade.”
“Ships of the World, start your engines. Let the oil flow!”
He then claimed in a subsequent that “many presidents” had tried to make peace with Iran

before him but all had failed—adding: “The Leaders of the Region have, for the first time, found a President who can help them achieve real Peace.”

But let’s review, shall we? The US and Israel attacked Iran on February 28th—killing the supreme leader, numerous other high-ranking officials, and more than 100 schoolchildren.
Trump and his team laid out several other constantly shifting and sometimes contradicting objectives and justifications for the war. And—in addition to keeping Iran from ever having a nuclear weapon, which US intelligence agencies had not found Iran was pursuing—these included:1) destroying Iran’s military and especially ballistic missile capabilities; 2) ending its support for regional proxy groups; and 3) enabling the Iranian people to rise up and overthrow the regime.

Trump initially claimed the US would accomplish these goals in “four to five weeks.” And—just one week after the strikes started—he said Iran’s only path to a deal was “unconditional surrender.” But months later US intelligence showed Iran retained significant missile capabilities—and we’ve seen no indication that the new deal includes restrictions.
And Iran has reportedly made it clear that it intends to keep building ballistic missiles.
And it has also reportedly made clear that it will keep supporting its proxy forces as best it can—including Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine, and the Houthis in Yemen.
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Produced by: Cory Ray, Philip DeFranco
Edited by: James Girardier, Maxwell Enright, Julie Goldberg, Christian Meeks, Matthew Henry
Art Department: William Crespo
Writing/Research: Jared Paolino, Philip DeFranco
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#Iran #Trump #StraitofHormuz