We have a deal to end the war!
No, wait. Sorry. I jumped the gun. We have a provisional “memorandum of understanding pertaining to peace.”
If you’re wondering what the difference is — the difference between a deal and a MOU — just consult any of the trade frameworks Donald Trump announced in 2025 when, in an effort to placate irritable markets and pacify a long list of incredulous US trade partners, The White House resorted to a succession of non-binding executive summaries setting out unenforceable “terms” for bilateral commerce.
After weeks of equivocation defined by bombastic rhetoric from both sides and intermittent clashes between the US Navy and IRGC gunboats, Trump said late Saturday that an agreement with Iran “has been largely negotiated, subject to finalization.”
Details were initially sparse, but Trump’s announcement, delivered on TruthSocial, as usual, came four days after he claimed the Pentagon was “an hour” away from launching new attacks on Iran, before regional leaders intervened, insisting the IRGC was earnestly engaged in the diplomatic process.
Trump said the agreement came together after consultations with the heads of the Gulf monarchies, Egyptian strongman Fattah El-Sisi, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan (who, as a quick aside, took another step towards extending his iron-fisted rule last week, when a beholden Turkish court replaced the leaders of the country’s main opposition party) and Asim Munir, Pakistan’s de facto dictator.
Reading between the lines of competing descriptions, the arrangement would end open hostilities between all belligerents, including the IDF and Hezbollah, reopen the Strait of Hormuz, toll-free, lift the American blockade of Iranian ports and unfreeze tens of billions in Iranian assets in a phased process contingent on subsequent negotiations around the fate of the country’s nuclear program, which’ll take place over the next two months. It sounds like those assets will be considered reparations (“reconstruction funds”) for the purposes of the arrangement.
Iranian state media said Thursday that Mojtaba Khamenei decreed Iran’s enriched uranium not be moved out of the country, but Trump, as well as US officials commenting both on and off the record, continue to insist Tehran will ultimately cede its store of near-bomb-grade uranium. The question is what “cede” entails.
Iran’s expressed some willingness to dilute at least a portion of the material under IAEA supervision, but Benjamin Netanyahu says it must be physically removed — by any means.
Speaking of Netanyahu, Trump talked to him over the weekend too. The call “went very well,” he claimed. According to a heavily-sourced article in the Times, Netanyahu was “thoroughly sidelined” by Trump in recent weeks.
As The White House pursued a settlement with Tehran, the Israeli leadership was “cut almost entirely out of the loop; forced to pick up what they can about the back-and-forth through their connections with leaders and diplomats in the region as well as their own surveillance from inside the Iranian regime,” the Times said.
Israel was still bombing Lebanon on Friday and into Saturday. Half a dozen paramedics in the country were killed in IDF airstrikes over just 24 hours last week, according to local officials.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for Abbas Araghchi’s foreign affairs ministry appeared to confirm that Trump and Iran are in fact in the home stretch on agreeing to a framework for ending hostilities, setting the stage for nuclear negotiations and, ultimately, “a mutually acceptable solution.”
First of all, I believe Trump served the best national interests (and did the world a favor) by eliminating the evil leadership in Iran with minimal civilian casualties. Nonetheless, in retrospect, if this action had been taken in early 2025, he would have a much better domestic environment than he is facing today. Instead, it will be two more tough years for him as President. Fate it is.
I think they still have the “evil” leadership in place. One can argue even more evil now.
I don’t think we do ourselves any favors in the honest, self-reflective analysis department when we throw out terms like “evil.” Evil compared to who? Canada? Ok, sure. Compared to New Zealand? Yeah, ok, I’ve give you that. Compared to the Scandies? Yes. But I don’t think those are the comparisons we’re implicitly making here. As one US president once put it, “We’re not so innocent ourselves.”
Or as David Mitchell and Robert Webb put it in their comedy sketch ” Are we the baddies?”
Trump didn’t have anything to do with eliminating any evil in Iran. Israelis did the eliminating. We just paid the tab.
Conflicts imbed violent death, hate and despair in peoples’ souls; things no treaty, agreement or MOA can remove.
In the pespective of the middle east quagmire spanning back at least 3000 years the existence of treaties, MOU’s or agreements are not worth anything. If you think Netenyahu will let USA bind IDF against Hezollah you are in for a rude awakening. The net result of this ‘Epic Fury’ is just to fan the flames of war and impoverish the USA.
This war exposed that our military is woefully unprepared to take on a drone power. We might get there but it will take overwhelming firepower. On a single night Russia and Ukraine launch almost a thousand drones. Yet we lament losing a dozen because we do not have drones built to attribute. To be a drone superpower we would need to launch 10,000 in a single sortie, or more.
Trump: “Oh god, let this be over…What ? A piece of paper? Great ! I’ll take it !”
It really doesn’t matter what’s in the agreement. If Trump says it’s a win, half the US and all of the Republican Congress will agree with him.
This will be the greatest MOU ever. I don’t think the world has ever seen one like this.
I can remember 45 years ago strategists speaking about hormuz being a dangerous choke point for the Iranians to deploy. Thats why every president but Trump avoided an outright war with Iran. And he blew up the jcpoa agreement his first day in office. I challenge anyone to prove we are better off today from prosecuting this war and not having that original agreement in place. We will be lucky to get back anywhere close to even on this failed gamble.
THis is what happens in any demcracy when money, evil and ignorance unite to elect their favorite candidate.
The current less than optimal situation is caused by the lack of a single mind to conceptualize and reconcile a path forward. In my view this is the reason to avoid autocracy for inevitably there are a few issues that slow down to the speed and bandwidth of a single mind. Democracy in such conditions is far superior way to reconcile a path forward.
Now its back to “well we might have a deal or we might not”
Although this Trump quote is gold:
“Can’t talk about the deal, it’s completely up to me, and if there is news it will only be good news. I don’t close bad deals.”
Guess the stable genius guy with a perfect brain forgot he went bankrupt 6 times.
I’ll hazard a guess Trump doesn’t even know what a MOU is much less know how to negotiate one. But if someone tells him he has a MOU he’ll say that sounds good to him for at least an hour or so.
There’s a non-zero chance that of the many unintended consequences of the war one could end up being the Republicans losing control of the House or Senate when they otherwise wouldn’t have. The war is currently working against enthusiasm for Republicans in many ways. The economic fallout is the most significant electorally. Should that continue, it alone could swing the midterms in either house.
Oh it will continue. It takes weeks for ships to make the transit. Gas will not resume prior shipment schedule for years considering damage. Fertilizer shipments have not yet resumed. Reserves are being depleted. I am planning to look at the markets 3-4 weeks after what can be considered full opening to divine financial big picture landscape for investing.
I predict that each side will end up with different interpretations of what they’ve agreed to…
One need only compare the years, man hours and level of expertise that we invested into the JCPOA with the online startup back office that we are witnessing here under Trump, whether in terms of time, seriousness or bona fides.
Seems like only a matter of time until we’re all treated to the Sticky Note Accord of 2026, assuming it doesn’t end up stuck to the bottom of his shoe where he’d never see it.