Contact The Editor
Articles By This Author
After days of keeping it under wraps, a senior U.S. official yesterday read out the draft text of the memorandum of understanding with Iran to cease hostilities. You can read it for yourself here.
Some highlights:
• Iran and the United States will stop fighting, including in Lebanon where Israel has continued to strike Hezbollah targets, and restore traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
• Iran's theocratic regime, which President Donald Trump encouraged the Iranian people to overthrow at the start of the conflict, is here to stay, and the U.S. will not try to topple it.
• Iran will receive $300 billion in relief money to rebuild.
• Iran and the U.S. will continue negotiating a lasting peace agreement that will include the lifting of sanctions and safeguards to ensure Iran does not pursue or obtain nuclear weapons. The permanent peace agreement would be enforced by a United Nations Security Council resolution.
• Until the U.S. lifts sanctions, the Treasury Department will issue waivers for Iranian crude oil exports.
• Iran will be able to access its frozen and restricted funds and assets.
So what was this all for?
That question is already dividing some Republicans and foreign policy hawks. The memorandum ends the fighting, reopens the Strait of Hormuz and gives Trump a chance to claim he prevented a broader economic crisis. But many of its core terms appear to return the U.S. and Iran to roughly where they were before the conflict: with Iran's government still in power and its long-term nuclear commitments still unresolved.
Before the war, the Strait of Hormuz saw the free flow of shipping, including roughly a fifth of the world's oil traffic. Reopening the water way essentially restores the status quo.
Iran and the U.S. had also already engaged in negotiations - albeit brokenly - on a framework over Iran's nuclear program in exchange for lifting U.S. sanctions. The negotiations were in pursuit of a deal to replace the 2015 Iran nuclear deal negotiated under President Barack Obama, which Trump vehemently criticized and left during his first term.
The terms of the MOU diverge substantially from Trump's initial threats to obliterate Iran unless it agreed to “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER” back in March. And it diverged from long-standing conservative criticisms of Obama's deal that lifted sanctions on Iran.
To be sure, the roughly four-month conflict did substantial damage to the Iranian military, including critical harm to its navy and air force. Much of Iran's top brass was killed in the war, including the country's aging supreme leader Ali Khamenei.
But several Republican Iran hawks were still furious at the terms of this week's MOU for ending hostilities without first securing future substantive gains aside from further negotiations. Iran hawks doubt the Iranians will negotiate in good faith and could stretch out the talks while rebuilding their military capabilities.
“It's a shell game, and my favorite part of this is the parallel language that's being used by JD Vance and his allies to the language that was used to promote the JCPOA,” Danielle Pletka, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told our colleagues Natalie Allison, Michael Birnbaum and Theodoric Meyer.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana) said all the conflict did was prove to Iran that shutting down the Strait of Hormuz was a successful tool to coerce the U.S.
“Before the war, the strait was open, Iran was being crushed by sanctions, and 13 service members were still alive. Now, 13 Americans are dead, families have paid billions at the pump, sanctions will be lifted, and the bombing has stopped,” Cassidy wrote on X. “This is the worst foreign policy blunder in decades.”
Susan Rice, who served as national security adviser to Obama, called the MOU a “jaw-dropping, horrific surrender document complete with hundreds of billions in reparations.”
Trump and his backers defended the agreement as necessary to stave off economic catastrophe from a prolonged conflict. And he denied the U.S. had given up its cards. Eliminating any possibility of Iran obtaining nuclear weapons remains a top priority, and he hasn't ruled out resuming hostilities.
“If I don't like it, if they don't behave, we'll go right back to dropping bombs right smack in the middle of their heads,” Trump said from the G-7 summit in France.
Vance was a major proponent of the MOU, Natalie, Michael and Theodoric report, despite some more hawkish members of the administration questioning a pause in hostilities, such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Vance has long expressed skepticism about getting involved in foreign conflicts, dating back to his time as a marine serving in Iraq.
Vance will attend a signing ceremony for the MOU tomorrow in Switzerland. Trump said he signed the MOU during a visit to Versailles with French President Emmanuel Macron.
“If it works out, I'm going to take the credit. If it doesn't work out, I'm blaming JD,” Trump said. “You'd better be careful, JD.”
(COMMENT, BELOW)