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.
I agree that the MOU is not going to be the durable, long term agreement. My concern is that Iran is almost guaranteed to drag the talks out over one or two years. The 60 day extensions will be endless. And all that time the MOU will be the only functional agreement in place. The longer I look at it, the clearer it becomes that the entire document is constructed as a pretext for Iran to continue its decades long campaign of disruption and destabilisation, but without the check on its power that the USA used to represent.
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.
I agree that the MOU is not going to be the durable, long term agreement. My concern is that Iran is almost guaranteed to drag the talks out over one or two years. The 60 day extensions will be endless. And all that time the MOU will be the only functional agreement in place. The longer I look at it, the clearer it becomes that the entire document is constructed as a pretext for Iran to continue its decades long campaign of disruption and destabilisation, but without the check on its power that the USA used to represent.