White House Talking Points Claim Iran Deal Victories That Often Outrun the Facts

A document on White House letterhead has been circulating this week among Trump supporters and Republican members of Congress, and its message is simple: the president has won the war with Iran. The Associated Press obtained the talking points from two recipients, a congressional aide and an outside government adviser. The memo claims Iran has agreed never to have a nuclear weapon, that the Strait of Hormuz is open again, and that fighting in Lebanon is ending.

The difficulty is that the agreement behind those claims has not been shown to anyone outside a small circle. A memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iran is expected to be signed Friday in Switzerland, but its terms are closely guarded, even from Republican allies in Congress and from the Israelis. Outside the most committed Trump supporters, that secrecy has produced confusion, concern and skepticism. Asked Tuesday at the Group of Seven summit in France why he would not release the terms, Trump said he wanted a formal setting first. He said he would probably hold a press conference and read the text word by word so the press would cover it accurately.

Trump also said he was open to sending an eventual agreement to Congress. "I like the idea, send it to Congress please," he said. But review is not a matter of preference. A law passed after the 2015 nuclear agreement under President Barack Obama, which Trump abandoned in his first term, requires that any nuclear agreement with Iran go to Congress. Some congressional aides argue that even the memorandum due Friday would fall under that review.

The talking points also lean on the history of the earlier deal. They say the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was never signed, which is partly true but misleading. The foreign ministers who negotiated it did sign a copy, though it was seen as an informal document marking the occasion. More significantly, the U.N. Security Council endorsed the accord and wrote its provisions into international law. The memo also says Trump solved a threat Washington spent forty years managing and that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. Iran has long said it does not want one. Critics doubt that, pointing to 440.9 kilograms (972 pounds) of uranium enriched to 60% purity, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, a short technical step from the 90% weapons-grade level. Talks on the nuclear program itself have yet to be held.

On Hormuz, the memo says the strait is open and that American families will feel relief at the pump and the grocery store. But the waterway, through which a fifth of the world's oil passed before the war, was open to all shipping until Feb. 28, when Trump and Israel began attacking Iran. Reopening it would only begin to restore conditions of Feb. 27, before the two countries spent billions of dollars on the war. Consumer prices rose only after the fighting began and Iran disrupted shipments through the strait. Normalcy could take weeks or months, and Iran insists it will keep control of access regardless.

On money, the memo says Iran will receive no taxpayer dollars and will get financial incentives only if it meets benchmarks. It suggests the 2015 accord cost American taxpayers billions, but the sanctions relief then came from frozen Iranian assets, not the U.S. treasury. It also invokes "the pallets of cash" sent to Iran. That cash came from an Iranian payment for a canceled arms sale to the late Shah's government, was unrelated to the nuclear deal, and was part of a swap that freed several Americans held in Iran and several Iranians jailed in the U.S.

The sharpest gap is Lebanon. The memo says the agreement ends military operations on every front, explicitly including Lebanon, with a commitment to Israeli and Lebanese sovereignty. Yet Hezbollah is not party to the Israel-Lebanon talks held in the U.S. and has rejected anything agreed there. Israeli officials say they will not be bound by the tentative deal and do not know its details. Ambassador Yechiel Leiter told NPR that Israel is less encouraged that Lebanon appears in the Iran agreement, calling that unnecessary and unhelpful. A senior U.S. official, speaking anonymously Monday, said Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon was not a condition of the memorandum.

What to watch now is whether the document is signed Friday in Switzerland, whether Congress gets the review the law describes, and how the Lebanon terms are settled.