WASHINGTON — The landmark peace framework with Iran announced Monday evening collapsed at 9:47 a.m. Tuesday after an extraordinary 645-minute lifespan, officials confirmed, shattering the previous record set by a 2018 North Korea deal that lasted until breakfast.
The initial terms, briefed to stunned allies on a conference call, awarded Iran $25.8 billion and permanent control of the Strait of Hormuz while deferring nuclear talks to an unspecified date that multiple diplomats described as “after lunch, maybe.” The White House hailed it as a triumph of personal diplomacy.
Captain Comb-Over reversed himself entirely 90 minutes after a phone call from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who posted on social media that the two had agreed any deal “must eliminate the nuclear danger” and “reaffirm Israel’s right to defend itself against threats on every front, including Lebanon.” Within an hour, the former president told ABC News the agreement was still “totally up to me” and that “if there’s any news, it will only be good news,” pausing only to repost a meme featuring a U.S. drone telling an Iranian ship “adios.”
“The president’s method is to secure immediate breakthroughs, then renegotiate them internally with himself, and then externally with the foreign leader who just called to remind him what country he is running,” said Deputy State Department Spokesperson Mark Villiers, speaking calmly from a hallway. “The fact that the deal lasted over ten hours represents a new standard of durability. We are very pleased.”
A senior administration official, who requested anonymity because he had not yet been un-briefed on the un-deal, said the diplomatic whiplash was intentional. “You show them a framework, then you yank it back. It’s advanced uncertainty theory. They can’t plan if you’re a weather system.”
The Defense Department, which had begun drafting a withdrawal schedule for the 2,500 troops stationed in the region, received a “disregard and shred” order at 10:06 a.m. A Pentagon aide later noted that a second order arrived at 10:19 a.m. instructing them to “maybe keep half the shredding, we might need the paper.”
Iranian state media reported the deal’s death with a single sentence, while a government spokesman dryly remarked that negotiating with the United States had become “like filing a claim with an insurance company that is also the collision.”
The White House closed the day’s press briefing by announcing a new Working Group on Pre-Announcement Clarification Protocols, which will study how many phone calls are too many before an international agreement officially isn’t. The group’s first recommendation is due never.
