Washington has a habit of dressing up its foreign policy in the language of moral purpose. Presidents invoke democracy, human rights, and the rules-based international order as if they were divine mandates rather than rhetorical conveniences.
So there is something almost refreshing—and certainly enlightening—to see the Trump administration conclude a deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran that is unapologetically transactional, stripped of Wilsonian pretensions and justified almost entirely on the basis of what it offers to American interests.
The agreement announced on June 14 – confirmed by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who served as a mediator – commits both sides to an immediate and permanent end to military operations, with the Strait of Hormuz to be reopened after the official signing in Switzerland. Details remain to be ironed out, with sixty days of follow-up negotiations expected to address sanctions relief and Iran’s nuclear program.
Critics on the left will complain that Trump bombed his way to a negotiating table he could have reached diplomatically. Critics on the neoconservative right will complain that he failed to change the regime. Both criticisms contain a grain of truth. Neither fully captures what actually happened.
What happened, stripped of the spin, is a classic exercise in coercive diplomacy—the application of military force not as an end in itself, but as a means to alter an adversary’s strategic calculus.
US and Israeli strikes in 2025 targeted Fordoun and Isfahan, significantly hampering Iran’s nuclear program, while the subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz disrupted global trade and sent shockwaves through energy markets. Both sides absorbed costs they could not afford indefinitely. A deal was made rational.
This is realpolitik in its most classic form – not Kissingerian elegance, but the most rugged American variant Nixon might have known: leverage applied, concessions made, handshakes exchanged, ideology parked at the door.
Whatever one thinks of the means, the logic is coherent in a way that the Bush-era “axis of evil” framework never was. That framework required transformation; this requires compliance.
The analogy that comes to mind is not Munich—the inevitable rhetorical grenade the hawks will lob—but Nixon’s opening to China. This, too, was a deal with a regime that Washington had spent decades demonizing. This too was denounced by ideological purists. And it also reflected a stubborn assessment that the alternatives were worse.
There is no need to praise the Islamic Republic to recognize that a negotiated solution to a conflict that has been disrupting a fifth of the world’s oil supply, killing thousands and straining US alliances across the region is preferable to its continuation.
That said, the realist in me demands due diligence. Neither side has shared the exact terms of the deal. It remains to be seen whether it will resolve major disputes over Iran’s nuclear and missile programs, the Strait of Hormuz and Israel’s wars with Iranian proxies.
The Iranian side has shown considerable skill over the decades at signing deals, banking concessions and reviewing compliance at opportune moments. The Trump administration, for its part, has shown it appreciates the announcements on implementation: The signing ceremony in Geneva will be theatrical, regardless of substance.
And then there is Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has said that Israel is not a party to the negotiated deal, while declaring that he and Trump are in “complete agreement” that Iran should not be allowed to obtain nuclear weapons – a formulation that manages to both endorse the goal and distance itself from the method.
Israelis, who wanted a more comprehensive dismantling of Iranian power, reportedly view the deal in its current form as a deep disappointment. This matters. A deal that leaves Israel feeling strategically exposed creates its own set of pressures on the viability of any deal.
The broader regional architecture also remains unresolved. Iran’s proxy network — battered by years of Israeli attacks, weakened by the fall of Assad in Damascus and stressed by the events of recent months — has not been disintegrated by the deal. The realist knows that power vacuums invite filling.
None of this is reason to condemn the deal. It is reason to be clear about what is and what is not. It’s a truce, not peace. It is a memorandum of understanding, not a strategic solution. It is the beginning of a negotiation, not the end of one.
But sometimes a truce is just what the moment calls for. The alternative – continued war, a closed strait, spiraling energy prices and the ever-present risk of escalation into something much bigger – was not a serious strategic option for a United States that still has other theaters to manage, an economy to tend to and a China challenge that dwarfs anything Tehran can muster.
Critics of Trump’s foreign policy have long accused him of having no strategy, only tactics. For Iran, there is something that at least fits the strategy: maximum pressure to force maximum concessions, then a deal when it becomes available. Whether subsequent negotiations produce lasting agreements on the nuclear issue and sanctions relief will determine whether this will be considered a real strategic achievement or just a very noisy pause.
Washington’s foreign policy establishment — wedded to its own form of ideological rigidity, whether neoconservative or international liberal — will struggle to credit this administration with any real achievements. This is her form of motivated reasoning.
Realpolitik, practiced competently, does not require ideological consistency. It requires a clear view of interests, an accurate assessment of power and flexibility to get a deal when one is at the table.
Whether Trump has those qualities in the right measure is, as always, a very open question.
Originally published by the author Global Zeitgeistthis article is reprinted with permission.
