The reviews are starting to come in, and they're... not good. Not good at all. Donald Trump's "Memorandum Of Understanding" with Iran is not exactly a big hit with anyone, it seems. The emerging consensus is that Trump pretty much threw away any advantage we had gained over the course of his war of choice, while giving the Iranians pretty much everything they had been asking for.

What's really notable about this is that Trump himself is only very weakly defending his deal. Usually, Trump deploys bluster in great quantities, proclaiming his actions to be those of a genius and the best possible outcome in all of human history. His bombast then convinces enough of the rightwing media echo chamber, and then they start parroting Trump's grandiose claims. This filters down to his MAGA base, and the creation of an entirely separate worldview (completely divorced from the hard, cold reality) is complete. But this time, that doesn't seem to be working.

Trump himself conceded what everyone (including the Iranians) had been saying all along: the economic pressure on him (gas prices, spiking inflation, etc.) and the political damage it could portend (in the upcoming midterm elections) was enough to make Trump absolutely desperate to cut a deal -- any deal -- as soon as he could. Trump essentially admitted as much this week, saying he didn't want to be remembered as another Herbert Hoover. This is rather strange, since Trump is just reinforcing the image of himself as weak and without leverage in the negotiations.

Trump has not been trying to make a silk purse out of the sow's ear this deal truly is, either. He's not out there proclaiming that he has forced Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions forever -- which was his whole messaging plan in the first place. Trump had been previewing that spin job before the text of the deal was made public for weeks, but ever since he has been rather quiet on this issue.

Most of Trump's defenders (JD Vance, mostly) are making the case for the deal from a defensive crouch. Their argument is, stripped down to its essence: "It's really not as bad as people are saying -- really!" That's not much of a vote of confidence, is it?

Trump and his minions are busily "defining down" their stated war goals. For instance, they're now perfectly fine with Iran having lots of ballistic missiles, even though their stockpiles of such missiles was a big reason for the war beginning when it did. Also unmentioned now are Trump's initial war goals of regime change and ending Iran's financial and military support of its proxies in the region.

To show how much this has changed, here is Secretary of State Marco Rubio, from the early days of the war:

"They're not going to have these ballistic missiles and they're not going to have drones to threaten us," Mr. Rubio said at the time. The "objective of the mission," he added, was to "deny them the ability to use ballistic missiles to threaten their neighbors, to threaten our bases, to threaten our presence in the region."

That was then, this is now. Intelligence reports estimate that Iran still has 70 percent of their ballistic missiles fully intact and ready to be fired. And now Trump and his vice president are out there conceding, in essence: "Well, they have to be able to defend themselves, heck, what's the big deal if Iran has a bunch of ballistic missiles?" How things have changed, in just a few short months.

This deal is so bad it is even getting condemned by some Republicans. Rather than attempting to put lipstick on a pig, they're just flat-out admitting that this is, in fact, one ugly pig. The most scathing comments so far come from (not surprisingly) a Republican senator who will not be returning to the Senate next year (because Trump successfully primaried him). Bill Cassidy is therefore free to say exactly what he thinks about the deal, and he started off with: "[Ronald] Reagan is rolling over in his grave." He then went on to offer up his full take:

Before the war, the strait was open, Iran was being crushed by sanctions, and 13 service members were still alive. Now, 13 Americans are dead, families have paid billions at the pump, sanctions will be lifted, and the bombing has stopped. This is the worst foreign policy blunder in decades.

But it's not just the Republicans who are on their way out the door. The deal is being denounced by others as well:

Senator Roger Wicker, Republican of Mississippi and the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, released his own statement that he was "concerned that the memorandum of understanding negotiates away the victories of Operation Epic Fury in ways that are completely out of step with the president's goals."

Wicker asserted that the $300 billion fund for the reconstruction and economic development of Iran included in the memorandum, "though not funded by U.S. taxpayers, would make Iran's payoff under President Obama's 2015 deal look like a pittance by comparison."

Some rightwing media outlets are equally unhappy:

On Wednesday morning, the front page of The New York Post offered a critical view of the administration. "Trump devastated Iran, now he hits them with a... LOVEBOMB," the right-leaning tabloid's front page blared, above an image of a burning American flag and text saying that Mr. Trump's deal showered Iran's leaders with "cash -- and no sanctions."

The worst reviews are coming from Israel. The voices on the right of Israeli politics are calling the deal a complete betrayal, and JD Vance is castigating Israelis from the White House podium. The entire alliance between Israel and the U.S. could be headed for its weakest point in a very long time if this keeps up -- which would, of course, absolutely delight Iran.

Bypassing the most scathing reviews from Israel, here are some views of technical experts, who tend to be more diplomatic in the language they use. Except when things get really bad, of course (emphasis in original):

"It's a bad agreement in which the Americans are paying with cash, and got, at the maximum, a letter of intent," Yaakov Amidror, a hawkish former national security adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, said in an interview.

. . .

"We are remaking the region," Chuck Freilich, a former Israeli deputy national security adviser, said on Thursday.

"Iran came out stronger, and I believe is now the regional hegemon," he added. "They stood up to the U.S., the global superpower. They can have missiles, and there's nothing in the agreement about the nuclear issue except we'll talk about it. This is an Iranian victory over the U.S. and Israel."

U.S. experts are saying similar things:

But the MOU is a wish list rather than a formal agreement, unfortunately. Other than reopening the Strait of Hormuz, it leaves nearly all the major issues to be negotiated over the next 60 days. Many experienced lawyers and diplomats share the view of Jeffrey Smith, a former CIA general counsel, who told me bluntly: "In my 52 years in the foreign policy world, I have never seen such a poorly drafted document."

Some people criticizing the deal have to remain anonymous, in fear of Trump's wrath:

"The MOU is structured to bring Iran to the table," said Matthew Levitt, an Iran expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think-tank. "And it demonstrates that the United States wanted this deal even more than Iran did. It is front-loaded with more deliverables from the United States and its allies toward Iran than the other way around."

. . .

"So many terms are not defined" and "Iran benefits the most," said a European official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the subject's sensitivity. Publicly, European leaders have praised the deal as a valuable initial step, the official said, "because we don't want to publicly say that it is a fool's work."

Trump is so worried by the almost-universal panning of his deal that he's already setting JD Vance up as the fall guy. Trump bluntly admitted to a reporter yesterday: "If it works out, I'm going to take the credit. If it doesn't work out, I'm blaming JD." Vance nervously insisted that Trump was just "joking." Vance is currently out on a book tour, essentially launching his 2028 presidential campaign, so he's got to be more than a little worried that he'll soon be looking up at the underside of a rather large bus.

Now that the text of the Memorandum Of Understanding has been made public, everyone can see for themselves how lopsided it is in Iran's favor. It's painfully obvious that Trump was desperate to make any sort of deal at all which would reopen the Strait of Hormuz in time to get gas prices in America back down before the November elections. To achieve this, he agreed to demands that would have been just laughed at by any experienced American diplomatic negotiator.

The deal is so bad, Republicans are feeling free enough to criticize it. And in the era of Trump, that's about as bad as it can get, really. One can only wonder what John McCain would say about this deal if he were alive today (or for that matter, as Bill Cassidy pointed out, Ronald Reagan).

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant