Late Wednesday, Donald Trump put Sharpie to page on the final version of a memorandum of understanding to end, at least for now, the war with Iran.

He signed the MOU while seated next to Emmanuel Macron at the Palace of Versailles. Trump was in France for the G7 summit.

Once the document bore his signature, Trump held it up and showed it around, like a child demanding plaudits for a crayon drawing. Everybody clapped. “Oil down,” Trump declared.

And down it went. Brent nearly slipped below $77 on Thursday, before rebounding. Crude’s on track for a double-digit weekly decline.

For context, Brent was $71 or so when Ali Khamenei was last among the living.

Somehow, the final text of the MOU looked even more favorable to Iran than sundry drafts circulated to mainstream media outlets. The language tweaks were subtle but, in at least a couple of instances, significant.

If you didn’t know the context and the backstory — i.e., if you weren’t aware of just how difficult and, in some cases, humiliating, the past three years really were for Tehran and its defunct “Axis of Resistance” — you’d be inclined to describe the Iran MOU as demonstrably one-sided.

Trump’s body language and demeanor in France suggested he’s aware that the optics aren’t great.

“Immediately upon the signing of this MOU, the United States of America will begin the removal of its naval blockade and any disturbances or impediments against the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the arrangement demands — sorry, stipulates.

The deal also compels Scott Bessent to “immediately” provide for “waivers” that free Iran to export “oil, petroleum products and derivatives.” To that end, Treasury will also provide waivers for any and all “associated services, including banking transactions, insurances [and] transportation.”

Between the dismantling of the blockade and the interim wavers, oil revenue will begin flowing to the IRGC more or less overnight. They won’t have to wait for the US to lift sanctions, a process that’s covered by another stipulation in the MOU.

The deal calls for the Guards to provide for “the safe passage of commercial vessels” through the Strait of Hormuz “with no charge,” but only for the 60-day negotiating period. The future of toll-free (or not) passage through the Strait will be left to a “dialogue” between Iran and Oman, in consultation with “other Persian Gulf states,” and “in line with applicable international law.”

One interpretation (if you’re not feeling charitable towards Trump, you might say the only interpretation) is that the Guards just took from the US all the financial leverage America had simply by agreeing to reopen the Strait for 60 days. Not only that, the IRGC’s fledgling toll initiative with Oman is still on the table, even if the Guards won’t be collecting any money from it during two months of nuclear negotiations with the US.

The passage that addresses Iran’s frozen assets says those funds will be made “fully available for use… upon the implementation of this MOU.” That seems to suggest that, JD Vance’s denials aside, Iran will in fact be paid (albeit in its own funds) simply for signing the deal.

It’s also worth noting that the provision on Iran’s frozen assets says that once released, and regardless of whether they stay in their current accounts or are transferred, the funds will be “fully usable for payment to any ultimate beneficiary designated” by Iran’s central bank. The same section compels the US Treasury “to issue all necessary licenses and authorizations accordingly.”

If you take that at face value — i.e., as written — it means Iran will not only have immediate access to billions of previously inaccessible hard currency, but the Guards will be able to send it to anyone they want, including sanctioned entities like Hezbollah.

I’m quite sure Bessent would say that’s not the correct interpretation, but if I were a lawyer for Iran, I’d ask, “Well how else should my client be expected to interpret the language?”

As for Iran’s “nuclear dust,” the preferred method for addressing the regime’s remaining stockpile of near-bomb-grade enriched uranium is down-blending “on site under the supervision of the IAEA.” Although the details were left to subsequent discussions, it seems clear that material’s staying in Iran.

The bomb language says Iran “reaffirms that it shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons.” The key word there is “reaffirms.”

As any regular reader will readily attest, I’ve repeatedly suggested that the Guards shouldn’t hold out simply to rob Trump of an opportunity to make a social media poster out of Iran disavowing a warhead.

Iran’s official position has always been that their nuclear program’s for peaceful purposes. No one believes that and Israel’s proven it to be false, so there’s no downside to repeating the line, particularly if, in doing so, you can score the kind of sanctions relief this MOU provides for. Apparently, the IRGC finally came around to that logic.

In the final analysis — and with the all-important caveat that between the decimation of its regional network, the loss of Syria as a client state, the likely diminishment of Tehran’s political sway in Baghdad as a result of a weaker Quds Force and confirmation that the country’s essentially defenseless in the face of a US-Israeli aerial campaign, Iran in 2026 is but a shadow of the aspiring regional hegemon that menaced the Gulf a mere five years ago — this MOU certainly favors Tehran.

Indeed, when you consider that with the exception of Khamenei himself and Ali Larijani, everyone who really counted in Iran and across its network was already dead before Trump started bombing in late-February, you could make the case that the Guards gained more than they lost.

If you’re going to make that argument, though, you should be clear that you’re confining the contextual window such that the discussion only pertains to a negotiated settlement to a four-month conflict that pitted history’s mightiest superpower against a pariah state which came in severely degraded.

Because if you pan out to a six-year view, it’s difficult, bordering on the impossible, to argue the regime’s stronger for its 2020s trials and tribulations. About the only way you can make that case is by reference to the old “Whatever doesn’t kill me” adage.