For a decade, President Donald Trump jumped at any opportunity to berate Barack Obama over the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, repeatedly complaining that his predecessor had handed Tehran billions of US dollars, including pallets of “cold, hard cash”.
That’s not what happened, but Mr Trump is never one to let facts distract from a good story. The money was from unfrozen Iranian assets, and the cash was part of the settlement of a disputed pre-1979 weapons purchase.
We are now watching the bizarre spectacle unfold of Mr Trump and his administration trying to sell the American public on their new Iran deal. It clearly states that Iran will benefit from a redevelopment fund of at least $300 billion – far larger than anything Tehran enjoyed because of the 2015 deal.
The text of the interim deal, which will allow time for a fuller agreement and is due to be signed in Switzerland on Friday, is vague about how this vast pot of dollars will be funded, stating only that the US and regional partners will “develop a definitive, mutually agreed plan” for the money.
Iran also stands to quickly benefit from billions more in oil sales, unfrozen assets and the lifting of sanctions, provided it meets its end of the deal. Mr Trump has dismissed the $300 billion fund as “fake news”, but it’s right there in black and white.
In other words, after 10 years of moaning about Mr Obama helping Iran get a financial windfall, the President has now crafted an agreement that does literally that, but on a far larger scale.
Upon reading the deal, which is only about 1,000 words long, compared to the more than 150-page 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the main line that the Trump administration will try to spin as a victory is this: “The Islamic Republic of Iran reaffirms that it shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons.”
Of course, it is vital that Iran does not get nukes. But Iran already undertook not to do this as part of the 2015 deal, which Mr Trump pulled out of.
Iran hawks in Washington and Israel have long maintained that Tehran was racing towards building a bomb and pushed for military action, but the new deal doesn’t seem to do much more than repeat what was in the old deal, plus Iran sceptics will no doubt continue to claim it is developing a nuclear weapon.
When Mr Trump launched the war, he did so alongside Israel, reportedly after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had talked him into it. Israel is furious about the deal, which it says reads like a wish list for Tehran and includes a provision to ensure the “territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon”, where Israel is still targeting Hezbollah.
The memorandum of understanding between the US and Iran that is due to be signed on Friday is a far cry from the “unconditional surrender” Mr Trump demanded a week after the war started.
After months of high petrol prices, sagging popularity and mounting political backlash, it is the US President who appears to have thrown in the towel in a bid to get oil flowing again before drivers hit the roads this summer.
It is not the first time Mr Trump has negotiated a deal that amounts to a capitulation. In 2019, his first administration cut a deal with the Taliban that many saw as a surrender and a betrayal. The only tangible Taliban concession after a 20-year war was the promise not to kill more American forces as they rushed for the exit.
The deal glaringly omitted any sort of protection for the many US-backed reforms to Afghan society that had been implemented over the years, such as basic freedoms for women and girls.
Here we are again, and the promise Mr Trump made to help ordinary Iranians get rid of their loathed regime has vanished in a puff of smoke.
He pushed another surrender deal last year, too, in an effort to end the war between Russia and Ukraine. A noble cause for sure, but Mr Trump essentially wanted Ukraine to capitulate to all of Moscow's maximalist demands. Kyiv said no, the war grinds on and Mr Trump has lost interest.
The war in Iran caused the deaths of thousands of people. Food and energy prices skyrocketed, and the damage inflicted on Gulf countries will take years to unwind.
Iran's military took a heavy blow, but at the end of the war, the regime remains in power and soon will have access to huge sums of money.
For a man who built his reputation on making deals, Mr Trump seems to have crafted a historically good one – for Iran.
