Iran’s skepticism toward U.S. commitments stems from repeated historical breaches of agreements and coercive tactics during negotiations. This entrenched distrust shapes current diplomacy, heightens the risk of escalation, and reinforces perceptions that Washington’s strategic unpredictability—regardless of administration—undermines prospects for durable conflict resolution.
No matter how much Teflon Trump seeks to let nothing stick, it is now quite clear that the United States has suffered an ignoble defeat in Iran. His promise of an “unconditional surrender” is more empty that his campaign promises “not to start a war” and to be a “peace president.” Thrashing around for a way to claim victory, Trump simply declares the US the winner. So desperate is he for global acquiescence to his mendacity, he has opened attacks on world leaders who do not support his madness (including some of his own MAGA faithful). After threatening to entirely decimate Iranian civilization, he has attacked Pope Leo as “a loser,” and cast himself as a reincarnation of Jesus. Is there no end to Delusional Donald’s dastardly deeds?
Worse still, his sycophantic underlings enable his lust for power and mimic his dictatorial style. After 21 hours of discussions with top Iranian officials in Pakistan, vice president JD Vance denounced Iran’s “failure” to agree with US demands.
Iran has announced that the US side has not won its trust, and rightfully so. Twice during talks to negotiate peaceful settlements of differences, the US and Israel have launched surprise attacks between scheduled negotiation sessions, assassinated the country’s leadership and massively destroyed hospitals, schools and civilian apartment buildings. For good reasons, Iranians are rightfully wary of US dishonesty. In 2015, it took hundreds of hours during the Obama administration to hammer out the nuclear agreement between the United States and Iran (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action). During Trump’s first term, he unilaterally tore it up without consulting Congress and reimposed sanctions on Iran (which Iran now wants lifted). In 2023, president Biden agreed to release billions of Iranian dollars. The US continues to hold those assets.
The current crisis can be traced directly to Trump’s autocratic behavior.
The unrealistic, indeed immature, character of Vance’s posturing in Islamabad is illuminated by comparison with US negotiator Henry Kissinger and Vietnamese Le Duc Tho, who took four years and eight months to forge the Paris Peace Accord of 1973. After less than one day, Vance left Pakistan and warned Iran not to “play us,” as if the devastation inflicted by the US war of choice was a video game.
Sadly, the history of nations that defeated the US provides Iran’s current misgivings with even more reasons not to trust anything Washington might promise. Soon after signing peace agreements with both North Korea and Vietnam, the United States of America immediately violated them. In short, the US cannot be considered trustworthy, no matter whom is president. Whether Democrat or Republican, presidents come and go, but US dishonesty and deception remain steady.
One of the Iranian side’s chief demands today is that the United States pay reparations for its destruction of the country. Relevant to this issue is a letter sent on February 1, 1973 from president Richard Nixon to Vietnamese premier Pham Van Dong, in which Nixon stated that the US would fulfill its signed agreement (on January 27, 1973) for American “participation in the postwar reconstruction of North Vietnam.” Reparations, Nixon estimated, “…will fall in the range of $3.25 billion of grant aid over five years.” Vietnamese officials trusted the word given by Nixon and actually budgeted those billions of dollars into their post-war planning. Not a cent was ever paid to a country that was ravaged by Agent Orange, B-52’s, and the depredations of half a million American troops. It should also be remembered that the Geneva agreement of 1954 promised Vietnam direct presidential elections within two years. As that deadline approached, US president Eisenhower publicly acknowledged that Ho Chi Minh would have been likely to win 80% or more of the vote. The United States never allowed the country to have free elections.
One evening in 2003, when I mentioned this history in Pyongyang over drinks with North Koreans, they gasped in shock. “You mean the United States has no honor?” Sadly, I nodded my head, as I watched their hopes vanish for a peace treaty to end the Korean War, not simply an armistice as had been signed exactly 50 years earlier. I should add here that the US continues to violate Article 15 of the Armistice Agreement, which explicitly states that both sides shall “not engage in blockade of any kind of Korea.” The US maintains an ongoing blockade of North Korea that heavily impacts its financial sector by obstructing international credit and new investments as well as trade and travel. Similar to Trump’s new blockade of Iran, the US severely sanctions transportation companies, ships and individuals helping North Korea to export coal and minerals.
The United States violates international law simply by turning its back on its international obligations and treaties or by never bringing them to a vote in the Senate. One prominent example is how it ignores findings of the International Court of Justice, from which the United States exempts itself (and Israel). Another is simply withdrawing from the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, something our grandchildren may sadly consider the greatest was crime of all. For obvious reasons, the US has never signed onto the International Criminal Court.
Whether or not sanity will now prevail may be an open question. Not only do Diabolical Donald and Satanyahu cast a dark shadow over humanity, but the historical track record of the United States indicates rough times ahead. It seems far more likely today that the United States and Israel will again murder Iranians and destroy the country than that those monsters will agree to a peace deal and end a conflict that Iran never wanted.