When the “Memorandum of Understanding” between the United States and Iran, to end the current war, was first announced, official US comments were vague or evasive, those by Iran clear and precise, suggesting the Trump administration was struggling to downplay the magnitude of its defeat. Now that the text has been released, it’s clear that defeat was even more comprehensive than expected. The central issues have been either ignored, resolved in Iran’s favour, or deferred to a sixty-day period of further negotiations once the document is signed on June 19. Moreover, the administration has abandoned what means of leverage it might have retained to enforce Iranian compliance. 

None of President Trump’s (shifting) war aims has been achieved. Regime change has not taken place; indeed the most extreme faction in Tehran is more firmly in control than before war began, with baleful consequences for Iran’s people and the region. There is no proposal to end Iran’s support of terrorist proxies such as Hezbollah. While the Iranian military, including its ballistic missile capabilities, has been weakened, there was less damage than Trump claimed, and Iranian forces have been rapidly recovering during the successive ceasefires. Tehran has gone no further towards abandoning its pursuit of a nuclear weapon than it had already done under the 2015 agreement negotiated by the Obama administration, which Trump repudiated during his first term. The demand that Iran forego any capacity to enrich uranium, a reasonable demand given its history, has been quietly dropped. Further, any successor agreement will be harder to enforce and monitor, given Iran’s recent efforts to conceal and protect its enriched uranium supplies and nuclear facilities. 

While Trump has claimed the Strait of Hormuz will reopen without tolls, Iran has committed merely to pause tolls during the sixty days of further talks but retains control of the Strait, with future administrative arrangements to be negotiated with Oman and other Gulf states. Iran has demonstrated its newfound leverage through its capacity to close the Strait at will, with closure no longer a mere hypothetical possibility. Thus it retains de facto control, with any........

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