The memorandum Donald Trump and Masoud Pezeshkian signed on June 17 bought Iran a Strait of Hormuz it can still threaten to close and Washington a 60-day clock it has already started treating as a formality. For Israel, the terms of that document matter less than what they leave out.

Toll-free passage through Hormuz for 60 days. A partial release of roughly six billion dollars in frozen Iranian funds, contingent on compliance, spent on American agriculture rather than whatever Tehran had planned. A negotiating window for something more permanent. Within days of signing, Iranian officials were floating “service fees” for tanker transit, and the Revolutionary Guards were warning they would close the strait again unless Tehran secured exclusive control of it. Vance has said Washington will judge Iran by its actions rather than its rhetoric, and that military action is back on the table if the technical talks in Doha collapse. Araghchi, for his part, threatened Israel directly after Israel Katz said Khamenei’s successor, Mojtaba Khamenei, had been marked for death.

None of this reads like a settlement working. It reads like a settlement doing exactly what its incentive structure would predict.

Iran’s........

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