President Donald Trump’s former senior campaign adviser David Urban slammed the president’s announcement Sunday of a potential deal to end the war in Iran, arguing during an appearance Monday on CNN that the country attacked by the U.S. and Israel cannot be trusted.
Urban’s Skepticism
“If it was good news, it would have been leaked,” Urban said about the purported peace deal. He continued, “We’d all know about it. Donald Trump would stay around to sign and pass out pens. The fact that he is getting out of town does not bode well. Anyone with any shred of political sense knows that politicians and cameras go hand in glove.”
The memorandum of understanding announced Sunday is set for a ceremonial signing Friday in Geneva and has been blasted by Trump allies such as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a longtime hawk on Iran. Trump has suggested he might not attend the signing.
Republican Skepticism
Urban is not the only conservative voicing skepticism, as Republicans on Capitol Hill said Monday they need more details about the tentative deal, which remains vague but reportedly centers on reopening the Strait of Hormuz and lifting the U.S. naval blockade there.
“I think that this is to be viewed very skeptically,” Urban said Monday. “I do not trust the Iranians. … They have been exporting terror through their proxies, whether it’s in Yemen and Lebanon, all across the Middle East, they’ve been nothing but an irritant to their neighbors.”
Background of the War
The Iran war began in late February with joint U.S.-Israeli strikes on Tehran. The war has already cost the lives of at least 13 U.S. military service members and more than 3,000 Iranians and led Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil passes.
“I think everyone has a right to be concerned,” Urban said. “This is a regime that’s chanted, ‘Death to America,’ for the past 50 years, roughly, and there is no universe — you know, [former President Ronald] Reagan’s famous, ‘Trust, but verify’ — there is no trust here.” He continued, “There is no reason to trust these folks.”
Trump’s Threats
Trump has previously threatened to destroy Iranian infrastructure, once infamously even its entire “civilization,” if the Hormuz strait was not reopened. Among the administration’s stated aims of its war has been preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
Axelrod’s Counterpoint
CNN chief political analyst David Axelrod, who was a senior adviser to President Barack Obama, pushed back Monday against Urban. He noted the Iranians only resumed their nuclear weapons program after 2018, when Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal cemented under the Obama administration — an agreement Trump frequently criticized.
“From the time the deal was signed, to the time the deal was ripped up, there’s broad agreement that they complied,” Axelrod said. “They shipped 97% of their enriched uranium out of the country. They disabled a lot of the equipment they needed to enrich uranium.” He continued, “And they submitted themselves to intrusive, international inspections. And so, what happened was, when the president walked away — President Trump walked away — from the deal, they said, ‘OK, we’ll go back to it.’ And they did go back to it.”
