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The tentative ceasefire agreement between Washington and Tehran has revealed a belligerent president reduced to bargaining to end the war he started – and it is a measure of how far he is from claiming the victory he desperately needs, says Anne McElvoy
Friday 29 May 2026 11:49 BSTScott Bessent addresses Trump-Iran 'deal'
Donald Trump's war in Iran began with a bang – literally, in the case of an all-out assault in February in tandem with Israeli intelligence, which hit its first target by killing the Ayatollah Ali Khameini. It has, however, puttered out into what looks like an imminent deal for extending the current uneasy truce to a formal 60-day cessation of hostilities.
But it hasn't pleased US defence hawks, who hoped that the mission would destroy the mullahs' grip on the regime, nuclear enrichment and illicit missile development programme. Nor does it guarantee a durable solution to the economically vital Strait of Hormuz and Tehran's ability to threaten global shipping routes.
Neither the White House nor Tehran wants to appear in a hurry to sign up, though both have good reasons to. Iran has signalled a readiness to extend the ceasefire because lifting the blockade on its ports and allowing sanctions waivers relieves an economic choke point on the regime by allowing it to export oil and improve its budget deficits.
The mutual benefit is to ease pressure on the international energy market (to the relief of governments like the UK's, desperate to constrain future price increases). Yet it also means the US is now bargaining with Tehran to stop the war it started. That is a long way from the 'Epic Fury' promises of curtailing the regional hegemon's power.
The famous 'art of the deal' is, in this case, an 'art of the retreat' proposition. Trump will never say publicly that it has not worked out as the degradation of Iranian offensive power he intended. But as his former national security advisor John Bolton told me a couple of weeks ago, Trump 'wholly lacked a strategy' to get out of the war. The result of opening the Strait of Hormuz on the extended truce terms is that 'They (Iran) will believe they can turn the Strait on and off like a light switch.'
Looked at from Trump's perspective, the fact that the war aims and exit strategy were so nebulous has enabled him to make a single-handed pivot and possibly a deal that Tehran can accept – for now. Hostilities have cost (by Pentagon assessments) $29 billion, and with a hefty knock-on cost to consumers in the rise in petrol prices and only five months until midterm elections in November, the President has been looking for an off-ramp for some weeks.
'Around 60 per cent of Americans now oppose continuing the fighting, which shows a weakening of the President's ability to bring the MAGA base behind him in this conflict' (Getty)
Around 60 per cent of Americans now oppose continuing the fighting, which shows a weakening of the President's ability to bring the MAGA base behind him in this conflict. That is a weakness he needs to close before the midterm test. Divisions between traditional Republicans and MAGA weaken his chances of fending off Democrat hopes that they can retake both the House and, more significantly, the Senate, tying Trump's hands in many legislative areas.
One other aggrieved party to note is Israel: the proposed 'memorandum of understanding' appears to have excluded it – with the right-leaning Times of Israel reporting today that 'fears that threats Netanyahu has long described as existential will not be adequately addressed'. It constrains Israel from operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon, which is welcome from a humanitarian aspect, but highlights that the aim of disabling the Iranian proxy militia has been sidelined. So the President has essentially chosen US interests over Israel's – possibly because he bristles at the idea that he was talked into the war in great part by Netanyahu, but also because 'America First', the neat encapsulation of his worldview, means that the effects of crises at home are always far more important to him than a consistent foreign and security policy.
On the upside, a truce, once observed for a set amount of time, can be indefinitely extended and that brings peace at a price of US pride. A less rosy scenario is that Iran has seen that pressuring shipping routes has brought its mighty assailant back to a deal, with the backing of most Gulf States. Most of the same problems remain unresolved: a deal here is a long way indeed from a victory.
Anne McElvoy is an executive editor at Politico, and host of the podcast Politics at Sam and Anne's
