The Epic Disaster of Operation Epic Fury

The United States and Iran are negotiating a memorandum of understanding as an initial step toward ending conflict. The expected framework is likely to include few specifics on the most complex issues. The earlier nuclear agreement reached in 2015 required extensive technical detail and diplomacy over two years. A later U.S. withdrawal in 2018 was justified as a “horrible” deal. The subsequent war has produced major costs, including large financial spending, loss of lives, disruption of global energy supplies, and closure effects on the Strait of Hormuz. The current negotiations may yield limited additional concessions beyond what was already agreed in 2015.

"Over the weekend, the U.S. and Iran said they were in the final stages of negotiating a "memorandum of understanding," or M.O.U.-the first step in eventually ending the conflict. The framework is expected to contain few specifics on how to resolve the most complex issues. Iran is playing the long game, despite incurring heavy losses that include the killing of its Supreme Leader and other se"

"During the Obama Administration, the United States did not have to launch a military crusade against the Islamic Republic to win significant concessions on its nuclear program, although diplomacy took two years of sometimes tortuous talks. Trump's war has so far cost at least twenty-eight billion dollars, thirteen American and thousands of Iranian lives, the crippling closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the interruption of global energy supplies, an economic crisis that has impacted hundreds of millions of people across the world, and possibly irreversible reputational damage to the United States."

"It's hard not to think of Trump's tweet as he navigates his own deal, to end an ill-considered, ill-prepared, and ill-timed war with Iran. During the Obama Administration, the United States did not have to launch a military crusade against the Islamic Republic to win significant concessions on its nuclear program, although diplomacy took two years of sometimes tortuous talks. Trump's war has so far cost at least twenty-eight billion dollars, thirteen American and thousands of Iranian lives, the crippling closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the interruption of global energy supplies, an economic crisis that has impacted hundreds of millions of people across the world, and possibly irreversible reputational damage to the United States."

"In September, 2015, the hotelier Donald J. Trump tweeted that the first nuclear deal with Iran, which had been brokered jointly that summer by the world's six major powers, "will go down as one of the most incompetent ever made. The U.S. lost on virtually every point," he wrote. "We just don't win anymore!" Trump, who had virtually no foreign-policy experience, had recently announced his candidacy for the Presidency. It seems doubtful that he read the hundred and fifty-nine pages in that first deal, or its five detailed technical annexes."

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