WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House has informed supporters that President Donald Trump has accomplished his goals in the war with Iran despite the details of an initial agreement remaining unclear and negotiations on Tehran's nuclear program still to be held.
In a series of talking points sent to Trump supporters and Republican members of Congress this week, the White House proclaimed major victories, such as Iran agreeing to never have a nuclear weapon,
reopening the crucial Strait of Hormuz and fighting in Lebanon ending.
The talking points, on White House letterhead, were obtained by The Associated Press from two recipients of the document and go against some of the realities on the ground, especially regarding what Israel has agreed to in its conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon.
But the memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran, expected to be signed Friday in Switzerland, is still a closely guarded secret, even among Republican allies in Congress and the Israelis. That has led to confusion, concern and skepticism among all but the most hard-core Trump supporters about what has been agreed to.
Asked why he was not releasing the terms of the initial agreement, Trump told reporters Tuesday at the Group of Seven summit in France that he would “like to get a formal setting first before we do that.”
“I’ll not only release it,” he went on to say, “I’ll probably have a press conference and read it to you word by word, so that the press covers it accurately.”
Trump said he was open to submitting an eventual agreement to Congress for review and approval.
“I like the idea, send it to Congress please,” Trump said. “I mean who wouldn’t approve it?”
Yet submitting a nuclear agreement with Iran to Congress is not optional under a law that was passed following the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement reached by then-President Barack Obama, which Trump abandoned during his first administration. Some congressional aides argue that even the presumed memorandum of understanding to be signed Friday would also be subject to lawmakers' review.
The talking points claim that the Obama-era Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, was never signed, which is partly true but misleading. The foreign ministers who negotiated the agreement did sign a copy of the deal, although it was viewed as an informal document meant to memorialize the occasion.
More important, the JCPOA was endorsed and approved by the U.N. Security Council, which enshrined its provisions into international law.
“President Trump solved a threat Washington spent forty years managing," according to the talking points. “Iran will never have a nuclear weapon.” Copies of the talking points were provided to the AP by a congressional aide and an outside government adviser.
Iran’s position dating back decades is that it has no desire to develop a nuclear weapon. Many Iran critics doubt that pledge because the country has 440.9 kilograms (972 pounds) of uranium that is enriched up to 60% purity, a short, technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90%, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Meanwhile, the talking points say “the Strait of Hormuz is open again, and energy prices American families pay every day are coming down.”
“American Families Are the Big Winners,” the document says. “Start with what this means at home. American families no longer have to fear a nuclear-armed Iran. They are going to feel relief at the pump and at the grocery store.”
The Strait of Hormuz, where a fifth of the world's oil passed before the war began, had been open to all maritime traffic until Feb. 28 when Trump and Israel began attacking Iran. That means that an agreement to reopen the strait would start to return the situation to where it was on Feb. 27 before the U.S. and Israel spent billions of dollars to go to war. It could take weeks or even months for some normalcy to return.
Consumer prices in the United States and elsewhere only spiked after the war began and shipments of oil and other commodities through the strait were interrupted by Iran, which insists it will retain control of access to the crucial waterway no matter what.
The talking points say Iran will not receive any American taxpayer money for its eventual agreement with and adherence to an as-yet unnegotiated nuclear agreement and will only get financial incentives if it meets certain benchmarks.
They suggest that Obama's 2015 nuclear accord cost U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars, when the monetary sanctions relief provided to Iran then actually came from frozen Iranian assets and not the U.S. treasury.
The talking points mention “the pallets of cash” the U.S. sent to Iran after the JCPOA was signed. In fact, the shipment of cash, which came from an Iranian payment for a canceled arms sale to the late Shah of Iran's government, were unrelated to the nuclear deal.
That money was part of a swap that saw the release of several American citizens detained in Iran and of several Iranians imprisoned in the U.S.
The talking points trumpet Trump's claim that the agreement will end the Israel-Hezbollah conflict in Lebanon.
“This signed agreement ends military operations on every front," they say. “For the first time, that explicitly includes Lebanon, with a commitment to both Israel and Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
However, Hezbollah is not party to talks that have been taking place in the U.S. between Israel and Lebanon, and the Iranian-backed militant group has rejected any agreements reached during them. Israeli officials also have said they will not be bound by the terms of the tentative Iran-U.S. agreement and do not know the details of it.
“We’re less encouraged about the fact that it seems that Lebanon has been included in the agreement with Iran," Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Yechiel Leiter told NPR. “And we think that that’s unnecessary and unhelpful.”
A senior U.S. official told reporters that Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon was not a condition of the memorandum of understanding. The official spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity Monday to discuss outlines of the unreleased agreement.
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Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani in Geneva, Darlene Superville in Evian-les-Bains, France, Koral Saeed in Jerusalem and Michelle L. Price in Washington contributed to this report.
