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The cease-fire that ended U.S. President Donald Trump’s war on Iran, and the memorandum of understanding between the two countries that cemented it, both appear to be dead letters following a military escalation in the Persian Gulf and an economic escalation from Washington.

The inevitable question is: What comes next? The answer is that nobody knows. 

The cease-fire that ended U.S. President Donald Trump’s war on Iran, and the memorandum of understanding between the two countries that cemented it, both appear to be dead letters following a military escalation in the Persian Gulf and an economic escalation from Washington.

The inevitable question is: What comes next? The answer is that nobody knows. 

The entire reason that the Trump administration signed the memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Iran was to open the Strait of Hormuz, a vital conduit for shipping, and to end the bombing campaigns that did little to alter Tehran’s strategic calculus. Three weeks later, the cease-fire is apparently “over,” according to Trump; key parts of the MOU have collapsed; oil prices are rising again; and the Iranian regime seems more intransigent than before. 

“Everyone expected at some point that the MOU would be tested. I think that time has come sooner than expected,” said Ellie Geranmayeh, a senior policy fellow and the deputy head of the Middle East and North Africa program at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

What set this all off was that Iran attacked several........

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