Trump 'capitulates' to Iran's hardline regime | Simon Marks' American Week

I'm going to be relatively short and sweet this week because, let's face it, there's a lot going on in the UK.And even more importantly, it's almost time for me to join the Tartan army in Boston for my next hydration break.But after three and a half months of conflict, this was the week when President Trump capitulated to Iran's hardline regime.

This was not easy.I can tell you.

Amid the clatter of dinner plates at the end of the G7 summit in France, the president signed a 14 -point, page -and -a -half memorandum of understanding with Iran.If you believe the White House, it guarantees peace in our time.If you believe the president's critics, it's a catastrophe.

Good job.Thank you very much.Great job.

Bravo.French President Emmanuel Macron led the applause and as the president exited the dinner...

Well, I'll just sign it.

King Louis XIV and his Versailles country estate to be what he called the ultimate in luxurious living, Trump wasn't going to miss it for the world.And it seems unlikely that he knew the last time the estate hosted a signing ceremony was in June 1919, the moment at which the Germans effectively signed a document of surrender at the end of the First World War.They, of course, knew they had comprehensivelost that conflict, and in Washington the president's fellow Republicans are just as certain that Trump has lost this one.

Giving billions of dollars to theocratic lunatics who want to murder us is not a good idea.I think the president, unfortunately, is receiving bad advice on this deal.

Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, one of several prominent Republicans who think the memorandum of understanding is legitimizing the very Iranian hardline clerical regime that the US and Israeli war on Iran was designed to topple.He was steaming over proposals that could furnish that very government with at least $300 billion in reconstruction and development funds and allow Iran to coin it even further by charging per vessel tolls for tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz if a full -scale agreement is finalized within the next 60 days.

Setting up Iran to be in charge of the Strait of Hormuz in perpetuity and to charge tolls is not in America's interest.In my view, the Ayatollah should not reap a single penny from the free transit.of the seas.

Across the board, Trump loyalists are struggling to defend the agreement the president is struggling to.$330 billion, after all, dwarfs the $1 .7 billion that Barack Obama paid Iran after the signing of the 2015 internationally -backed nuclear deal, a payment that President Trump even today rages about.Pete Doocy, chief White House correspondent for Fox News, with this bouncer for the president at the G7.

what the difference is between.giving Iran U .S.S.dollars and unfreezing U .

S.dollars?Well, the unfreezing is an easy one to answer.We have taken a lot of their money and we have their money.We have taken their money.It's not our money.

It's their money.And we froze it at a certain point in time.I guess we're going to have to give it back.

And then last night, this stunning exchange with Mark Caputo of the political website Axios.

What have you learned about not just the exercise of power, but the limits on your power as a result of the conflict?

There are no limits.No limits?No.I haven't learned that lesson yet.I know there are, but you know.

Oh, we know, all right.And then Mr. Caputo went in for the kill.

However, beginning a conflict, you had talked about you only wanted unconditional surrender.

and well the MOU doesn't look like unconditional surrender well it really probably is unconditional surrender yes so that's where we've got to it would be a bit like the Germans back in 1919 signing the original treaty of Versailles and then declaring victory but that's where America is as a country these days led by a president who is incapable of stipulating to reality one major casualty of all this and it could still prove to be the Iran agreement's undoing is the president's relationship with Israel.Publicly this week, he made his irritation with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu clear, even suggesting at the G7 that Syria should now take responsibility for going after Hezbollah, Iran's proxy in Lebanon, not the Israel Defense Forces.

We've had an amazing partnership.He's been an amazing prime minister.We have a little dispute over Lebanon.I say you can do a little softer touch, baby.You don't have to knock down a building every time somebody walks into it that's from Hezbollah.

The Israeli leader of course insists that is exactly what he needs to do to protect his country and shows no signs of knocking it off for as long as Hezbollah continues launching attacks on Israel.But Donald Trump really wants to move on now and it will surprise nobody if the 60 days of talks with Iran go nowhere and we are back in the familiar wash, rinse, repeat mode of the regime constantly playing.for time.Time is on Donald Trump's mind these days.We're four and a half months away now from midterm elections about which the Democrats continue to project great confidence.And of course Trump is now, as of this week, an octogenarian.

You will of course be aware that the president, who nods off regularly during official government meetings, showed last Sunday night that he is more than capable of staying awake when he wants to.Having built an arena for cage fighting on the White House lawn, the president celebrated his 80th year, and America's 250th, by watching grown men pummel one another into bloody pools of submission.He was there until 1 .30 in the morning, and it came as a surprise to nobody when the event went off the rails.Shortly after UFC pugilist Josh Hokett presented Trump with his winner's chain, he then had this to say during an interview with the grinning MC, podcaster Joe Rogan.

Lastly, Michelle Obama is a man.Am I right, America?

And thus, yet another entirely false conspiracy theory begins, this time hatched on the South Lawn of the White House, where just a few weeks ago, King Charles was officially welcomed to Washington by...President Trump.From the White House, there was of course no apology to the former first lady, Dana White, the head of the UFC, a business in which Donald Trump has investments, insisted the evening had unified America.And it wasn't only the fighters who were engaged in cosplay, so was Secretary of State Marco Rubio just days before the event.

with their White House in the background as part of our celebration as a country in our 250 years, I think is a gift to the American people.

A gift to the American people.That, of course, is what the president has claimed about his renovation of the giant reflecting pool that sits directly beneath the Lincoln Memorial.It's one of the city's most glorious landmarks.You may recall that he's had it refurbished.And controversially, he's had the floor done up in swimming pool blue.Before the refurbishment, he could not stop talking about it, interrupting one White House event for 12 minutes to bang on about his builder's exciting plans for the pool.

And he said, what color would you like, sir?I said, well, what about turquoise, like in the Bahamas?He said, well, this is Washington, sir, we can give you turquoise, but why don't you try, like, We have a color, it's called American flag blue.I said, that's the color I like.He talked me into it very easily.

this week.Put it to the test.

We're gonna scoop up a water sample to see if we can get this tested.CNN independently took the sample of water and consulted with a pool store that regularly tests water to help read the results.It showed phosphate levels far higher than what is recommended to keep algae at bay based on estimates for a pool that holds 6 .5 million gallons of water.

If there's already some phosphate fertilizer in the water, That's really opportunistic, especially for the blue -green algae that can fix nitrogen.So they are having a field day out here.

Frantic efforts are now being made to kill the algae off before America's big birthday bash in a fortnight.10 ,000 gallons of hydrogen peroxide are being poured into the pool One bottle at a time, and now at least one large chunk of the just -installed blue lining of the floor has broken off and is floating to the surface.It's not going to look pretty on July the 4th, and you certainly wouldn't want to swim in it.In fact, it's put me right off the idea of taking that hydration break.