Hope Is Not a Foreign Policy

U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Sunday evening that he has reached an agreement with the Islamic Republic of Iran. The deal was negotiated through Pakistan, with Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey making their contributions.

Many Israelis, as well as global Jewry, have a deeply uneasy feeling about this.

First, the Israelis, who are among the first line of fire for the Iranians, have been left out in the cold. They were never asked to participate in these discussions.

Trump says the Strait of Hormuz will be “open to all.” Since roughly 20% of the world’s oil passes through it, this could certainly help ease gas prices. The Islamic Republic has been losing approximately $500 million per day since the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps closed off the waterway on March 2.

Iranian state media has published that the Islamic Republic will be receiving some $24 billion simply for signing the agreement, which no one has yet seen. There seems to be no way of verifying if this is true.

But we have heard absolutely nothing about Iranian missiles, their nuclear program and their terror proxies. Tehran still seems to feel that Hezbollah is a powerful part of its “axis of resistance.”

Meanwhile, in the interim, the Iranian terror proxy Hezbollah has fired three drones over northern Israeli airspace. Israel, as a sovereign nation, must react to defend its citizens. Every sovereign nation carries that moral responsibility. This morning, Israel hit Hezbollah’s region over Dahiyeh, a strongly Shi’ite region.

These are no longer the days before Oct. 7, 2023. Jerusalem has got to respond to fire with fire.

Hundreds of thousands of Israelis live in the northern communities. They need to live in safety and security. Since Oct. 8 — just one day after the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel and the slaughter of 1,200 people and kidnapping of 251 others — tens of thousands have been reluctant to return to their homes.

Hezbollah and its drones might well be attempting to sabotage the deal. On Sunday, Trump’s 80th birthday, the U.S. president had some choice words to say to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for defending his nation’s citizens from Hezbollah.

Not wanting his birthday present to himself to be spoiled, in an interview on Axios with Barak Ravid, the president screamed: “What the f— are you doing? You’re f—ing crazy. You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me.” He then accused Netanyahu of having “no f—ing judgment.”

Iran closed off the Strait of Hormuz in March. Its continued ability to close it down shows they can control the price of oil. The United States parked an armada around the Strait, but Iran extracted a separate track with a toll for ships to maintain their course. The IRGC has launched drones at foreign ships or has demanded an excessive tariff.

The leaders of the Islamic Republic do not negotiate. They remain firmly stuck in place. Those in the West feel that they must bend and yield, and that the truth is always somewhere in the middle.

Iran and other totalitarian regimes do not budge. They have been lying to their people, telling them they won the war. As for Tehran, it remains deeply committed to its nuclear enrichment program, missile-defense program and terror proxies.

Trump posted on Truth Social that the attacks by Israel in Lebanon after the Hezbollah drone attacks on Israel “should never have happened.” He called the Hezbollah attacks on Israel “small and meaningless” because “they resulted in no injuries.”

If this were an attack on Washington, D.C., the president would immediately respond, whether someone got hurt or not.

The “deal,” as far as is known right now, is simply a 60-day extension of the ceasefire. The can will be kicked down the road.

Why contort the truth?

Trump appears focused on gas prices and the midterm elections. For his birthday, he seems to want the illusion of peace — a deal that would reopen Hormuz; release frozen assets to Iran; and postpone harder negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program, missile program and terror proxies.

Hope is not a foreign policy. The president is simply taking victory out of the U.S.-Israeli jaws after months of successful poundings of Iran, throwing his hands up, and pronouncing it a triumph.

Sarah N. Stern is the founder and president of the Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET), a think tank that specializes in the Middle East. She is the author of “Saudi Arabia and the Global Terrorist Network ” (2011).