The US, Iran, and the mediator -Pakistan – have all said that some kind of agreement is close. This is the first time all have agreed. Usually such statements come only from Trump and are merely for the purpose of market manipulation. However, there are significant caveats. What is being proposed is not actually a deal, but merely a memorandum of understanding (MOU). There are still huge differences in the public stance of both the US and Iran, and Israel has said it won’t agree to anything. The MOU is meant to be phase one of an agreement, involving a sixty day ceasefire during which further details are to be negotiate, leading to phase two.
Iran has said that their conditions for an MOU are that the ceasefire must be total, in other words it must include Lebanon and Gaza, and that Israel must retreat from these areas completely. In addition, frozen assets must be released, and sanctions on their energy sector must be lifted. The US has categorically refused to the latter two conditions, and Israel has indicated that it has no intention of withdrawing from occupied territory, nor will it cease its ethnic cleansing of either Gaza or southern Lebanon. Benjamin Netanyahu has stated that his conditions are a handover of all enriched uranium, the destruction of all enrichment equipment, a strict limit on Iran’s missile arsenal and cessation of assitance to Iranian ‘proxies’ (actually merely allies) in the region. In addition, Trump insists that the strait of Hormuz be open to all for free passage. This is also not going to happen. Hormuz lies in Iranian and Omani territorial waters and they will not be surrendering control of it. Ships will pay a fee to pass, and ships from hostile nations will not get permission to transit. None of the US or Israeli conditions will ever be accepted by Iran.
Israel has a long history of violating ceasefires it has agreed to, and it doesn’t even agree to this one. Under the circumstances, it seems unlikely that any meeting of minds is possible. Even if somehow the US and Iran could find a way to move forward, it’s extremely likely that Israel would sabotage the attempt, given that their goal is the utter destruction of Iran, and they want to the US to do it for them. They’re fond of false flag attacks, and could plan something that would lead Iran to retaliate against them. This would almost certainly drag the US back into conflict to defend them. The difficulty with that from the American perspective is that they lack the capacity to defeat Iran. The war in Ukraine, the previous twelve day war, and the current conflict have depleted American stocks of missiles and interceptors, and it lacks the surge capacity to replace them quickly. It has glide bombs, but these require aircraft to face Iranian air defence, which has not been destroyed as the US has claimed. The US has also run out of reachable military targets, and even dual use targets. The targets it would like to hit lie deep beneath mountains and are impervious even to nuclear strikes. Hitting more purely civilian targets would destroy America’s reputation to an even greater extent than is already the case.
The empire has lost this war, while Iran has emerged far more united and powerful than it previously was. Trump’s extreme narcissism will not allow him to admit this, hence his continued beligerence and refusal to acknowledge any aspect of the reality on the ground, including accurate casualty figures and the extent of damage to American military assets in the region. The casualty figures will be much higher than admitted, and the damage to all US bases in the region is extensive. Most will not be useable again. The losses are easily in the billions of dollars. It’s unlikely that any attempt to rebuild them would be allowed by the host monarchies, given that the US has failed to protect them. In fact the US has angered allies further afield (as far away as South Korea), since it’s reclaimed military hardware from them in order to hand it over to Israel. It’s become clear to US vassal states that bases on their territory were never for their protection, but evidence of their subjugation.
China, which prioritises stability, has likely been pressuring Iran through Pakistan to find a way to end the conflict, although it likely recognises that the current US regime is agreement incapable due to Trump’s extreme emotional reactivity. Iran may be prepared to agree to phase one in order to present themselves as peacemakers, knowing that the other side will not honour it anyway, so phase two will not happen, and the empire will eventually be forced into a humiliating defeat from the entire region. Trump’s days are numbered, either due to his failing physical and mental health, or politically due to his disastrous handling of both foreign and domestic policies.
