We’re still getting conflicting reports about what is contained in the memorandum of understanding reportedly about to be signed by the United States and Iran. Both sides are describing different details; neither has released any text and neither is a reliable narrator. But the big picture is fairly clear. It’s not a peace agreement, just a longer ceasefire. And the terms just revert everything to the status quo ante before the war with a promise to negotiate over Iran’s nuclear program.
Of course, that is what the two sides were doing before the US and Israel launched the war. Iran is at least informally saying it got even more than this, perhaps with the release of funds to Iran and perhaps even tolls on traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. But let’s assume for the moment that that is not the case. The US is ending the war, at least tentatively, having got nothing behind having degraded Iran’s military and done what appears to be a huge amount of economic damage to Iran’s economy – destroyed factories, etc. None of its stated war aims have been achieved.
White House friendly reporters are putting out the administration’s claim that Iran has made “verbal commitments” to basically shutting down or greatly reining in its nuclear program. In other words, Iran has agreed in advance to be super accommodating about agreeing to shutter its nuclear program in these coming negotiations. But that sounds like happy talk. Either BS from the White House or BS from Iran to the White House then passed on to the US press. It’s very hard to see how Iran is going to make major concessions on its nuclear program absent some overwhelming threat of force. What did the US get out of this? Even on the White House’s own terms? Close to nothing.
