The weakest president since 1776: Donald Trump capitulates. Iran wins.

From Markus Somm

Anyone familiar with “Roger vs. Markus”—the weekly debate show I host with Roger Schawinski on Radio 1—knows that I’ve been saying for years that I think 82 percent of U.S. President Donald Trump’s policies are good in substance.

• When Roger gasps for air and protests, I add: OK, so 83 percent.
• Roger has reason to be happy. For me, that figure is now 47 percent.

What Trump signed this week at the Palace of Versailles is one of the most embarrassing acts of surrender America has ever signed.

I actually think the end of the Vietnam War was less terrible—even though it was devastating—and even though the North Vietnamese communists, shortly afterward, failed to honor virtually any of the promises they had made in writing and through underhanded means. America threw South Vietnam to the wolves. Still, it was at least a withdrawal after waging war for eight years and losing some 58,000 soldiers in the process.

• According to the Pentagon, 13 U.S. soldiers have been killed so far in the latest war between the U.S. and Iran.
• And Donald Trump is losing his cool.

In a rush, frantically—if not desperately—he signed an agreement late at night, the imminent completion of which he had announced about 40 times over the past few weeks. That’s how the most powerful man in the world can, of course, make himself look like the weakest monkey on the planet.

• Of course, the 13 deaths are not the reason Trump wants to end the conflict with Iran.

No further details are known.

• What he says doesn’t really matter anyway, because Trump also says it’s the best deal ever.

For once—considering Trump’s usual statements—this is a bit of an exaggeration. Note the irony.

“The Art of the Deal”? What the self-proclaimed chief negotiator of world history has conceded to one of the most brutal and illegitimate regimes of our time leaves one speechless—provided one takes the trouble to wade through the obsequious language of the treaty: Iran hardly has to make any concessions—essentially, these consist of ending the unlawful blockade of the Strait of Hormuz—

• and in return, Iran will receive the lifting of the blockade on its ports and nearly all other sanctions as a concession from the United States.
• Immediately, large sums of money are once again flowing into Iran, which can thus rearm itself and supply its allied terrorist groups—including Hezbollah in Lebanon—with weapons.
• Furthermore, a $300 billion fund is to be created to finance Iran’s reconstruction—and who is supposed to foot the bill? Needless to say, the Gulf states, which Iran bombed out of the blue.

The devil is being paid for having really heated up hell.

Whether Iran will back down—at least on the issue of its nuclear program—in the next 60 days, as agreed, remains to be seen, but in Trump’s universe, Iran remains a potential nuclear power—and lately, he doesn’t seem to care.

Just a few weeks ago, Trump defiantly insisted that Iran must never, ever be allowed to possess a nuclear bomb.

• Why should I care about the nonsense I spouted yesterday?
• I’m no trained psychologist, but this man suffers from foreign policy ADHD.

Speechless: Israeli columnist Amit Segal, whom I have cited on numerous occasions, compares this “deal” to the end of World War II:

• “It would be like having made peace with the Nazis back then, even though they were still in power, and having promised them that France and Great Britain would finance Germany’s reconstruction.”

Donald Trump set out to make history. He’s likely to succeed. Unless he’s careful, he’ll go down in the history books as the weakest president since 1776.

The left has hated him for a long time; the right has just begun to despise him. I’m one of them.

Or, as Benjamin Franklin, one of America’s great Founding Fathers, put it: “It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it.”

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Markus Somm is the editor of Nebelspalter.ch, where this commentary was published.