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Democratic strategist James Carville is mocking the memorandum of understanding (MOU) reached by the Trump administration with Iran, arguing it effectively shows that the U.S. lost the war just as the country readies for its 250th birthday.
Carville called the MOU an “instrument of surrender” during an interview Thursday night with Chris Cuomo, the host of NewsNation’s “Cuomo.”
The longtime Democratic strategist actually credited President Trump for getting out of the Iran war, arguing that it is better to remove the country from the fighting then continue, given the experience the United States had in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts.
“And let’s give Trump credit where credit’s due,” Carville said. “He did what Lyndon Johnson did not do in Vietnam. Just get out. He didn’t do what Bush and even Obama did in Afghanistan. Just get out. You understand?”
Carville said the best thing President Biden ever did was to leave Afghanistan.
“And I’ll give Trump credit. He thought his thing was going the wrong way, and he just quit and got out, and sometimes you got to do that,” he said.
Carville said it was less embarrassing to sign a memorandum of understanding with Iran to have to evacuate, as Biden did from Afghanistan.
“Well, we had troops. So it’s harder when you have to have actual visual of soldiers, of Marines, of airmen being evacuated,” he said. “That’s more humiliating than just signing an instrument with the regime.”
But he argued the actual preliminary agreement with Tehran, which opens the Strait of Hormuz and ends fighting but sets up new talks on Iran’s nuclear program, betrays the opposition within Iran while driving a wedge between the U.S. and Israel.
Iran has “always wanted to drive a wedge between Israel and the United States,” he said. “Mission accomplished. The regime cares about one thing and holding domestic power in Iran. They did that. We really, the people that really lost were the opposition in Iran. There were actually a lot of people that were opposed to this government. I don’t know if they could have succeeded or not, but they’re done now, and they’re even saying that.”
Carville said the deal “really stabbed the Iranian opposition.”
“They’re very smart people. They’re very talented people, and we didn’t treat them with any respect, and we hurt the opposition in Iran by this. It’s not even as stupid as it was, no it doesn’t do justice to just how stupid it was,” he continued. “We lost. Happy 250th, America. You just lost a war.”
The Trump administration has pushed back hard at critics of the deal.
Trump has argued it was necessary to end the fighting to prevent an economic depression, while Vice President Vance has said those criticizing the deal seemingly want an endless war.
They have also argued the war leaves Iran weaker than before it started, given the killings of much of Iran’s former leadership and the heavy blows that country’s military and economy took.
A number of voices in Israel have criticized the MOU, and fighting in Lebanon between Israel and the Iranian-backed militia group Hezbollah could threaten the agreement.
Trump has also pointed to a rising stock market and falling oil prices in hailing the agreement reached by his team.
Carville told Cuomo he believed Iran had won leverage by learning it could choke off the global economy by closing the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of the world’s supply of oil flows.
“There’s going to be a risk premium in a barrel of oil for the foreseeable future,” he told Cuomo. “I mean, I can’t, I’m not smart enough to tell you what it is, but I don’t think anybody could deny that. These oil traders are going to demand a premium because now they know, and Iran knows, they got a choke point, and they can bring it out anytime they want to.”
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