The MOU is working exactly as Iran planned
Beneath the terrible deal they extracted from the USA is another, more dangerous plan
The memorandum of understanding between the USA and Iran is, superficially, a straightforward set of conditions, albeit one that amounts to a humiliating strategic defeat for America. But those terms conceal a much more subtle and brilliant stratagem by the Iranian regime - a stratagem designed to entirely neutralise both the USA and Israel, and to elevate Iran to regional hegemony.
This stratagem hinges on three calculations of realpolitik:
President Donald Trump, regardless of bluster, will not recommit the US armed forces to all out war with Iran (and possibly not even maintain the blockade)
Iran therefore has de facto control over the Strait of Hormuz, and no involved nation can challenge that control.
Israel cannot tolerate continued attacks by Hezbollah without retaliating, and cannot, on its own, either overthrow the regime or open the strait.
Viewed through that lens, the fourteen points of the MOU are tools, not conditions. They are not a means to an end - they are an end in themselves. The Iranians have crafted them expressly to destroy the USA’s political will to oppose Iranian power, and to isolate the state of Israel from its remaining allies.
Take the $300 billion “rehabilitation” plan as an example. I believe the Iranians have no expectation of receiving this putative investment. They have inserted that clause expressly to stir disgust and anger in the American government, media and populace. This outrage puts further pressure on the already embattled Trump administration. If Iran does receive any of said aid, all the better, but that would merely be icing on the cake.
The same applies, to a lesser degree, to the repatriation of frozen Iranian assets. The mullahs are keen students of American politics, and understand its levers of power and pitfalls far better than most Americans. They are aware that Mr Trump will be unable to stomach unfavourable comparisons with the Obama-era JCPOA.
A deeply insecure man, Mr Trump cannot abide the prospect of “losing” to America’s first black president. Thus, the reality of unfreezing said assets will eat away at the administration like a cancer, and its courtiers and apparatchiks will expend enormous political capital in trying to convince its voters that green is, in fact, red.
Meanwhile Iran will be benefitting from the only provision truly vital to its survival - clause 10. “The United States undertakes that immediately after the signing of this Memorandum of Understanding, and until the date of the lifting of sanctions, the United States Treasury Department will issue waivers for exports of Iranian crude oil, petrochemical products and their derivatives…” As long as this oil keeps flowing, the regime will remain afloat.
But it’s in the first clause that the Iranian ace card is hiding - the inclusion of the Lebanon front in the conditions of peace. For decades Hezbollah has served as a loyal and capable cat’s paw of the Iranian regime, as well as a parasite on the beleagured Lebanese state. It stands to reason that Iran would want to protect its own, yes?
Except that Hezbollah does not need Iran’s aid to survive. Part of the group’s usefulness is its ability to reconstitute itself even after being repeatedly decapitated and decimated by Israel’s defence and security aparratus.
Iran has included Lebanon in the conditions for one reason: it is a wedge to separate Israel from its most powerful allies. President Trump is abjectly desperate to save his country’s economy from more pain, and by extension his flagging presidency. He will do whatever it takes to keep the peace, up to and including a fundamental diplomatic break with Israel.
Put another way - Iran has intentionally inserted a totally unreasonable and practically unenforceable condition into the MOU, a condition that attempts to bind a sovereign nation that is not even a party to the agreement. The Iranians do not just expect it to fail - they want it to fail.
We can already see this at play today, with the regime announcing the re-closing of the Strait of Hormuz due to the Israel’s most recent retaliatory attacks on Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. It’s obvious that Iran has connived with its proxy to goad Israel into retaliation, and to give it the opportunity to flex its muscles in the strait.
Abdulla Banndar Al Eltaibi, a professor at Qatar University told the media that Iran is playing what he calls the weekend strategy. “That’s what President Trump used to do for the markets not to react during weekends. So they [Iran] are actually applying maximum pressure on President Trump and also the mediators to have Hormuz for Lebanon basically,” he said. “They want all fighting to stop in Lebanon for the Strait of Hormuz to be restored.”
This new geopolitical reality puts both Mr Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu into an impossible position. Mr Trump must have peace at all costs, and Mr Netanyahu must defend his country if he is to have any chance of winning the election in October. These two positions are irreconcilable - exactly as the Iranians intended them to be.
Exactly how this plays out remains to be seen, but its clear to me that Israel will be increasingly isolated and besieged. If Mr Trump’s bellowing and threats do not cow Mr Netanyahu, the combined pressure of the rest of the developed world may do so. Israel will become the reason the strait of Hormuz is closed - a completely untenable political reality.
Its fashionable to denigrate Israel and to dismiss the only truly democratic country in the region as a bully and a tyrant, but without their influence the entire middle east would be poorer, more illiberal, more violent and less sane. A nation of just 10 million people, they are an island of modernity surrounded by a sea of 7th century fanaticism. Whatever its faults, Israel should not be abandoned to the theocratic fascists that plot its erasure. If any nation could stand alone, it is Israel, but I hope they will not need to.
Meanwhile, safe in their bunkers, some of the most wicked men on this earth are chuckling about how completely they have outmanoeuvred and bested the Great Satan. The most powerful nation on earth dispatched a second rate real estate tycoon and a failed novelist to negotiate one of the most consequential agreements of the century. Are we truly surprised that this is the outcome? This will be Mr Trump’s legacy but, unfortunately for us, it will be our new reality long after he is dead.
I must acknowledge Professor Robert Pape whose heterodox style has changed my entire perspective on this conflict specifically and on geopolitics more generally.
Thanks for sending this; personally I haven't been following the situation too closely, because I believe that ultimately the memorandum of understanding is not a particularly important document in the first place. It's the equivalent of a request for proposal; something that serves as a framework for actual documentation in the future.
I think at the end of the day Iran has realized that many of its weaknesses are also its strengths — specifically, right now, there's an obfuscation of the present power structure in Iran. Who is actually in control? What is the next level of succession planning?
And the fact that they have control over such an important strait is always going to serve as their ace in the hole. The one benefit of being an already poor country is that, comparatively speaking, you can eat the hits to globalized commerce with a great deal more resilience.
That being said, I do agree that Trump has pretty much entirely backed himself into a self-made corner; at this point the only moves he has is a complete capitulation to Iran or to send boots on the ground in another forever war.
In my opinion the next Administration is going to have to do a great deal of work to rebuild soft power and to do some nation building but a lot can happen in the meantime.