Faulty reasoning signals

• Confirmation Bias - 7.3% (90 hits)
• Anchoring Bias - 2.6% (32 hits)
• Availability Heuristic - 3.5% (43 hits)
• Representativeness Heuristic - 4.3% (53 hits)
• Hindsight Bias - 1% (12 hits)
• Overconfidence Bias - 1.3% (16 hits)
• Framing Effect - 5.3% (66 hits)
• Loss Aversion - 0%
• Status Quo Bias - 0.8% (10 hits)
• Sunk Cost Effect - 0%
• Optimism Bias - 6.3% (78 hits)
• Pessimism Bias - 18.1% (223 hits)

Article text

Iran Won the Negotiation, Even Though It Lost the War

The full text of the framework agreement with Iran is now public, and it is lopsided.

There is one piece of good news: Washington and Tehran are publicly describing the same deal.

Previous purported agreements in this conflict featured wildly different accounts of what had supposedly been settled, a classic tactic for backing an opponent into a corner publicly in hopes of extracting concessions they never actually made.

This time, the two sides agree on what they agreed to.

That is a real signal that both sides are ready to be done with the fighting, at least for now.

That is where the good news ends.

The deal itself is horrifically lopsided.

Iran gets most of what it wants, and it gets it up front—before negotiations on a final deal even start.

The United States gets very little.

Israel gets even less.

And there are still a great many trap doors through which Iran can escape, or through which the whole thing can fall apart.

What Iran Got

The list is long.

The framework calls for an end to all military operations, including in Lebanon, which shows up three times in the agreement’s first paragraph alone.

Most astonishingly, the text commits the parties to “ensuring the territorial integrity of Lebanon”—language Israel will not honor until Hezbollah is fully dismantled and the Lebanese Armed Forces actually control the southern border.

That goal is still a long way off, which makes this pledge read more like a wish than a plan.

Israel, notably, is implicitly included in this agreement.

The text says the United States, Iran, “and their allies” agree to its terms.

But did Israel actually agree to this?

This dynamic is a wobbly three-legged stool: The United States wants this over, Iran wants to survive and call it a win, and Israel would prefer to see Iran neutralized and internally divided.

These interests are not aligned.

Iran also wins a pledge of noninterference in its internal affairs.

Iran always assumes the United States and Israel are working to undermine the regime, so they will have insisted on this line.

It gets the immediate end of the U.S. naval blockade, with the American pullback required to be complete within 30 days—meaning Iranian oil starts flowing out and cash starts flowing in almost immediately, with an expectation of roughly status quo ante shipping.

Withdrawal of U.S. troops is a bigger one still, even though it belongs to the eventual final deal rather than this interim one: The United States agrees to pull its forces from “the proximity of” Iran within 30 days of that final agreement.

Then there’s the money.

Iran is in line for an estimated $300 billion in “reconstruction and economic development” funds.

This is a tough pill to swallow.

But if Iran has any hope of a stable future, some real structural problems need fixing—Tehran is, quite literally, running out of water because of decades of neglected infrastructure.

Sanctions relief is a similar story: The United States “undertakes to terminate all types of sanctions,” with that one hedge word, “undertakes,” doing a lot of work, given how tangled the sanctions regime has become over 20 years.

Sanctions relief belongs to the final deal, not this one.

Immediate waivers letting Iran sell oil, though, do not wait—more cash for Tehran, starting now.

Same with the release of frozen assets, which the text says must be “made fully usable for payment to any ultimate beneficiary designated by the Central Bank of [Iran].”

What the United States Got

By comparison, this is a short list.

Commercial vessels get to transit the Strait of Hormuz “with no charge for 60 days only,” and the strait will be cleared of “technical and military obstacles.”

So, no more threat to commercial shipping—at least for now.

The Gulf allies will be thrilled about this one.

Iran also “reaffirms that it shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons.”

But the world has every right to be skeptical of such promises, which have proven hollow in the past.

Then there’s the disposition of the enriched uranium, which has long been a U.S. redline.

The framework’s “minimum methodology” is “downblending on site,” meaning Iran keeps control of both the material and the process—including who gets in to help and how.

If past International Atomic Energy Agency inspection fights are any indication, this is going to be a mess.

So, What’s Left to Negotiate?

Plenty.

Once the framework is signed, all fighting stops, including in Lebanon.

The naval blockade ends.

Shipping moves freely through the strait.

Oil waivers go into effect.

Frozen assets may or may not start moving.

Only then does the 60-day negotiation clock start, and there is still much to negotiate:

* How does the fighting in Lebanon actually end?

Can the Lebanese Armed Forces push Hezbollah out of the south—an Israeli redline—and will Israel withdraw all the way up to the Litani River?

* What counts as U.S. troops in the “proximity” of Iran?

Does that mean the entire region?

Kuwait?

Qatar?

Does the Fifth Fleet pull out of Bahrain?

* How will the $300 billion in “reconstruction” be spent?

There is plenty of room for that money to land in the pockets of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) leaders, who run security in Iran and also happen to own most of its profitable businesses.

* What happens to the enriched uranium, and what does a sustainable end to Iran’s nuclear program actually look like?

What do inspections look like?

Who gets to participate?

* What are the actual “procedures” for releasing frozen Iranian assets?

* How does the UN Security Council pass a binding resolution?

Here, again, the United States seems to be speaking for all of the council’s permanent members—which may be a rather large assumption.

Russia could play spoiler with its veto.

And the United States has spent decades insisting it will only be loosely bound by whatever the United Nations decides.

In an odd way, this is a retreat for Washington.

The Bottom Line

The United States does get two important things that don’t show up anywhere in the text.

First, hope for a global economic recovery before the November midterm elections.

The administration’s political advisers can clearly see the that Americans are feeling gas prices and inflation.

Second, Washington patched up its relationship with the Gulf royals.

This conflict has been a major loss for them, in lost oil exports now and in the long term.

This is the second oil shock in five years, which might be enough to push the world to take real, permanent steps toward renewables.

Iran lost the war but won the negotiation and won it convincingly.

Tehran used every economic lever it had and walked away with a phenomenal deal.

The next round is the real test: Does Iran try to extract more, or does it negotiate in good faith?

Does it use the first exchange of fire in Lebanon as an excuse to walk away, or does it play it well enough to quietly widen the gap between the United States and Israel?

The framework answers none of that.

Only the opaque decisionmaking of a scattered Iranian regime will decide.

Emily Harding is director of the Intelligence, National Security, and Technology Program and vice president of the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.