U.S. and Iranian delegations in Switzerland reported progress in peace negotiations after both countries signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at ending the war on Iran, which Trump launched with Israel on Feb. 28. But Israel’s airstrikes and military occupation of southern Lebanon remains a major point of conflict in the talks. After Iran declared it would close the Strait of Hormuz due to Israel’s continued assault on Lebanon, Fox News reported on June 21 that Donald Trump threatened to kill the Iranian delegation in Switzerland. Despite the president’s bombast, the two sides are working to reach a final deal within the next 60 days.
Iran’s top negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf says an agreement has been reached with the U.S. to release $12 billion in frozen Iranian funds with more to follow. But Iranian officials refuted claims by President Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance that the Islamic Republic had agreed to allow UN inspectors to visit its nuclear sites, engage in negotiations on the country’s ballistic missile program, or made a pledge to spend released funds to buy food from U.S. farmers.
Meanwhile, the Senate approved a House-passed War Powers Resolution directing President Trump to withdraw U.S. armed forces from hostilities against Iran after four Republican senators broke ranks and voted with Democrats. The vote is largely symbolic as the measure won’t be sent to Trump for a signature or veto. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with David Faris, professor of political science at Roosevelt University, who discusses his recent Nation Magazine commentary, “The Framework for the Iran Peace Deal Means Total Humiliation for Trump.”
DAVID FARIS: We are exiting the war in a much worse strategic position vis-a-vis Iran and their nuclear program than we were going into the war. So it very much looks like there was a better deal on the table between the Trump administration and the Iranian negotiators before we started bombing them. And so one of the things that the war revealed was that Iran has a sort of a previously unthought of amount of leverage over the U.S., over Israel, over the global economy by virtue of its ability to close the Strait of Hormuz. That’s bad enough, but I think the reason that it’s a broader strategic setback for the United States that sort of transcends our Middle East policy, it transcends the problems that we’ve had with Iran for 47 years. The reason it transcends those things is because Iran was able to damage apparently quite severely a number of American military bases in the region, a number of our radar installations, airports and ports and natural gas and oil infrastructure in a way that really calls into question the entire American global military strategy.
It calls into question the ability of the United States to serve as this kind of reserve naval power. That sort of guarantees free passage on the open seas. And I think this all happened at the hands of a fairly badly equipped and weak and really in a lot of ways Iran was reeling in February of 2026. That regime kind of looked like it was on the ropes based on the kinds of protests that were happening in the country and the economic problems they were having. And so that very weak country was able to inflict this kind of damage on, I think what we would have once thought of as one of the greatest military powers in world history. And so I think there’s a lot of potential adversaries looking at what happened in Iran and thinking how much would it really take to knock out some of America’s bases in the Pacific, for example. Could America really defend Taiwan if there was a war between China and Taiwan and China tried to retake the island.
These are the kinds of questions that people are asking now because it’s not just that we looked weak in a direct kind of material physical sense. The problem is also that we now look weak from a commitment perspective. The president has spent months issuing what looked to be completely hollow threats against Iran. “We’re going to do this to you. You got 48 hours.” “We’re going to do that to you.” “We’re going to erase your civilization,” Right? This and that. And beneath all of those threats is the reality that the United States seems incapable of keeping a single narrow shipping channel open with this extraordinarily expensive Navy. That’s one of the things that was the most shocking to me in terms of when we’re watching this war unfold, we’re watching Iran close this Strait of Hormuz and then you’re watching the president either unwilling or unable to do what is necessary.
And I think what all of our allies in the region thought was necessary to keep that channel open. And so to me, that really looks like a real kind of world historical unsettling of the geostrategic status quo in a way that’s like pretty bad for America’s standing in the world. It’s pretty bad for the way that we’ve been operating. You know, there are some things that you could see as silver linings and upsides, but I think from a pure American power perspective, this was a disaster that is really unparalleled since the Vietnam War.
SCOTT HARRIS: Professor Faris, what role do you think Donald Trump’s often noted erratic behavior and what some describe as cognitive decline or unhinged megalomania play in launching this historically unpopular war and as you and others describe it, this humiliating defeat.
DAVID FARIS: I mean, I think that his incompetence and his impulsiveness and his refusal to learn the basics of any issue that he’s engaged in overseas first and foremost makes him really vulnerable to pressure and input from people that want to manipulate him. I think his mental unfitness for office is really central to this whole problem. I think a mentally fit president would never have done this. But had they done it, there would’ve been months if not years of planning with the very elaborate, expensive system of expertise that we have inside the federal government that is supposed to guide the president, get input from the various different executive agencies, like get the military looped in, and really, really inform the president of the best, the medium, the worst case scenarios of how this could go. And it just seems like none of that happened, Scott.
It seems like there was a visit from Netanyahu and a few days later he was like, “All right, let’s do it.” You know? Like you’re making plans to go see a movie or something. So yeah, I think you’re absolutely right. I think that his cognitive decline, it’s not just that it’s visible on TV. It’s visible in the path of wreckage that he’s left for the United States policywise over the past 18 months and it’s really a disaster.
Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with David Faris (27:22) and see more articles and opinion pieces in the related links section of this page. To subscribe to our podcasts, email newsletters, our Trump authoritarian playbook Substack or social media, subscribe here.
