This week, President Donald Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signed a memorandum of understanding outlining terms for an end to the U.S./Israeli war on Iran. After months of bombing, the United States has achieved none of its stated war aims.
What does Trump’s defeat mean for the future of U.S. designs in the region? Will the U.S. relationship with Israel change in any way going forward? What does the Iranian victory mean for the country?
Mondoweiss U.S. correspondent Michael Arria spoke with Jadaliyya co-editor and Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies fellow Mouin Rabbani about these issues and more.
This war with Iran may be coming to an end as these negotiations begin. It’s obviously not a peace treaty, but this agreement is about to be signed.
This whole thing looks like a decisive defeat for the U.S. They achieved none of their stated goals. What do you make of this result, and what are some possible long-term implications for the United States? What does the defeat mean for U.S. presence in the Middle East going forward?
I’d start with a few comments. The first is that the United States has suffered an unambiguous defeat.
The second is that any responses to U.S. diplomacy have to be considered tentative, because Washington has repeatedly demonstrated itself to be a thoroughly dishonest, untrustworthy, and unreliable negotiating partner. Most recently, it launched two unprovoked words of aggression, using diplomacy as camouflage, just in the past year. As you just mentioned, this is not a peace treaty, and so we have to keep the very real possibility in mind that the u.s is simply not serious about any commitments it has made under this agreement, but having said so
There are important indications that the U.S. recognizes its defeat and that it will prove extremely costly for the U.S. to try to overturn it. Let’s briefly go through the history. In 2015, the United States and Iran signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action JCPOA. The Iranian nuclear agreement, which ensured that Iran could never develop a nuclear weapon, established the most intrusive monitoring and inspections regime in the history of the nuclear age, and basically fulfilled each of Washington’s explicitly stated objectives with respect to Iran.
What we found is that the United States was very slow to meet its own commitments, and the agreement turned out to be a bad deal for Iran because of the benefits Iran was supposed to get from it, including trade and the lifting of sanctions. So they were quite limited, but that wasn’t enough for the United States. In 2018, the U.S. unilaterally renounced an international agreement and replaced it with a policy of maximum pressure, a policy that made things much more difficult for Iran.
However, the U.S. failed to achieve any of its objectives in terms of either fomenting regime change in Tehran, reducing Iran’s regional footprint, or affecting its ballistic missile program. More importantly, Iran viewed itself as no longer bound by its own commitments under that agreement, which, according to everyone who has looked at it, Iran was scrupulously observing until that agreement.
Then in 2021, Washington renewed negotiations. I’m not talking about Obama and Trump and Biden, because it’s important to understand we’re talking about the policies of a state, of a country, not those of different individuals. That’s why I’m referring to Washington and the United States, rather than the individual leaders involved.
In 2021, recognizing the failures of maximum pressure, Washington reopened negotiations with Iran to rejoin the agreement, but rather than simply admitting its failure or its mistake or whatever, however you want to describe the unilateral renunciation of an international agreement,
The U.S. tried to impose a new agreement on Iran rather than seeking to resolve issues that arose as a result of the renunciation of that agreement and the subsequent Iranian violation of its own commitments. Here I’m referring primarily to Iran’s decision to begin enriching uranium to increasingly high levels. Washington sought to impose a new and entirely different agreement that would have compelled Iran to make commitments that had nothing to do with the original 2015 agreement.
I’m talking about, for example, Iran’s regional policy, its relationships with its partners in the so-called “Axis of Resistance”, and its ballistic missile program. Needless to say, Iran rejected these illegitimate demands, which set the stage for the issues we’re discussing today.
I would like to add a personal note: in late 2020, after U.S. presidential elections, I got a call from a researcher at Chatham House in the UK. They were conducting a study on how the incoming administration should handle the Iranian file.
I made a very simple point. The U.S. has essentially two choices. It can either unconditionally admit its mistake and rejoin the JCPOA, then raise any objections it has to Iran’s conduct under this agreement, or it can take a different path, like trying to impose new conditions on Iran, and that’s not going to work. It’s going to end badly for everyone concerned. If I say so myself, I’ve been proven right by the Biden administration’s refusal to uphold U.S. obligations under the JCPOA. The Biden administration’s insistence on continuing with Trump’s policies towards Iran, without altering them in any way, in other words, maintaining maximum pressure, even adding new sanctions, set the stage for war.
So you can’t just say Trump is horrible and it’s all his fault. We have to look at the consistencies in U.S. policy over the past several decades, and particularly the last one. We had the 12-day war last year. It achieved nothing. Then we had the unprecedented, unprovoked war of aggression launched by the United States and Israel against Iran on February 28 this year. Now the objectives of that war were laid out very clearly, openly, explicitly word for word by the leaders concerned: regime change, a comprehensive end to Iran’s nuclear program. In other words, Iran would no longer have a nuclear program as opposed to having one under proper international supervision with monitoring, you know, every single reactor would be decommissioned, missile material would not be so much be moved out of the country as seized by the United States and taken to the United States. Iran’s ballistic missile program would be comprehensively dismantled. Iran would not be allowed to have any more regional alliances and so on. There was also an unstated Israeli war objective that may or may not have been shared by the United States. And that was essentially a state collapse to make Iran a carbon copy of Iraq during the first decade of the century and Syria during the second decade.
It failed. Not a single one of these objectives was achieved. On April 8, the United States, recognizing its failure and the increasing cost of pursuing success, concluded a ceasefire agreement with Iran, mediated by Pakistan in close coordination with Saudi Arabia and with additional input from Egypt, Turkey, and perhaps others.
The ceasefire agreement ultimately didn’t resolve any of the issues that led the United States to accept it. What I mean is that you had a global economic crisis caused by this war. Energy prices were increasingly high. What was being termed a price shock was threatening to become a supply shock. In other words, the issue wasn’t so much that you had to pay so much for these things, but that they wouldn’t even be available on the market. A whole bunch of secondary impacts were observed in terms of petroleum byproducts, inputs for agricultural fertilizers, and other products that were prominently exported from the Gulf.
None of these issues were resolved because a ceasefire in and of itself was not, for example, sufficient for Lloyd’s of London to begin bringing down maritime insurance rates to a reasonable and acceptable level. In other words, the trade didn’t get back on its feet.
Now, the difference here is that, um, the U.S. was not only dealing with damage to itself but also with damage it had inflicted on the global economy. Whereas for Iran, which the United States had spent nearly half a century seeking to disconnect from the global economy, yes, it was suffering and enduring a very punishing reality, but it was much less affected by these things.
So, to resolve this, the problems that it had created for itself as a result of its decision to launch an unprovoked war of aggression against Iran and in partnership with Israel, the United States essentially had two options, because a ceasefire in and of itself didn’t resolve those challenges. It was left with two options.
The first was to sign a diplomatic agreement with Iran, on the understanding that it would reflect Iran’s strengthened position and Washington’s weakened one. The second option would have been to resume full-scale military hostilities, and that would have required the commitment of substantially larger U.S. military and other resources than had been committed at the beginning of the war. Those are resources that, in key respects, the United States either no longer possessed or was unwilling to commit, and even then, without any guarantee of success.
Faced with these two options, Washington’s initial policy was to seek to create a third option by instituting the blockade of Iran and beginning what was essentially a war of attrition against Iran. The United States hoped to sufficiently weaken Iran and reduce its leverage by forcibly reopening the Strait of Hormuz and compelling Iran to sign a diplomatic agreement that would be much more advantageous to the U.S.
Initially, this approach worked to Washington’s advantage. The problem was that Iran retained the capacity to respond and retaliate, and it began retaliating with increasing force, so that things were rapidly escalating once again, leaving the U.S. facing a fork in the road. It either had to reach a rapid, conclusive diplomatic agreement or, failing that, rapidly escalate once again towards full-scale war.
It chose this diplomatic agreement because it was unprepared, unable, and unwilling to once again commit to full-scale war, bearing in mind, as I said at the outset of this very long-winded response, that the United States has repeatedly proven itself to be a thoroughly dishonest, untrustworthy, and unreliable negotiator. We should by no means conclude on that basis that this is over now.
What we have now is a diplomatic agreement; it’s not a peace treaty. It’s a framework agreement; it sets forth the issues that need to be resolved and those that the United States and Iran have mutually agreed to either implement or negotiate.
If you look at the memorandum, what is as important as the issues that are included in that document are the issues that are excluded. And the issues excluded encompass every single objective proclaimed at the outset of this war regime change. Not only is regime change not on the agenda, but Washington has committed not to interfere in Iran’s internal affairs. Iran’s ballistic missile program, Iran’s regional alliances, these are not even up for discussion. The only issues that are up for discussion are Iran repeating, as it has for decades, that it will not acquire nuclear weapons, and the issues of enriched uranium in Iran, basically, its violations of the 2015 agreement that are on the agenda only because the U.S. unilaterally renounced that agreement. Beyond that, no element of Iran’s nuclear program is even up for discussion.
So, if you look at this agreement, it represents an unambiguous victory uh for Iran, and the reason that I’ve referred to this war as Washington’s Suez Moment, and i’m leaving Israel outside the analysis for the moment, is that just as how in 1956 Britain and France going to war in the Middle East to reassert themselves as global powers in the aftermath of the Second World War and being confronted with the limits of that power, making unambiguously clear that they were in fact declining powers, so in 2026, the United States went to war in the Middle East to reassert its global primacy, and as a result of its failure, has confirmed its decline as a global empire.
Let’s move to Israel. In the last few days, we’ve seen pro-Israel pundits melting down at the results here. We have Israeli hawks claiming Trump stabbed them in the back. Looking at this document again, it appears to be a massive defeat and setback for the country. The ceasefire covers Lebanon. It refers to Lebanon’s territorial integrity.
In recent days, Netanyahu has bombed Beirut, which many think is an attempt to torpedo the deal. What do you think about that claim, and what does this loss mean for Netanyahu? Does it recalibrate the relationship with the U.S. in any way? Trump is definitely making public comments suggesting that Israel will be reeled in.
I explained to you why I think it’s appropriate to refer to this war as Washington’s Suez moment, and a similar analogy can be made with respect to Israel. In other words, Israel, since October 2023, has been engaged in a series of wars to remake the Middle East and to establish its unchallenged hegemony over the entire region. From Israel’s perspective, the war against Iran was supposed to be the final act in the play, consolidating and confirming Israel’s regional hegemony.
Instead, Israel came up against the limits of its regional power and was confronted with its inability to impose its hegemony on the region.
Therefore, I also see this as a turning point, or perhaps a potential turning point, regarding the specific point you raised about Lebanon. Yes, many people have interpreted Israel’s attacks on the southern suburbs of Beirut as a desperate attempt by Israel to sabotage a U.S.-Iranian agreement before it could be consummated.
That’s an entirely plausible interpretation, but it’s also not the only one. And again, we have to be speculative about any interpretation because we don’t yet know the details. Another equally plausible interpretation is that Israel was acting not against U.S. interests, but to further U.S. interests.
In other words, this bombing of Beirut took place with the full knowledge and support of Washington. Now, why would that be the case? Well, because you already have an agreement that provides very clear strategic advantages to Iran over the United States, and Iran being able to dictate Israeli policy elsewhere in the region would be seen as a massive failure for both the United States and Israel.
So, this attack could be seen as a desperate last-ditch attempt by both Israel and the United States not to scuttle the agreement, but to separate the Lebanese and Iranian arenas, to say to Iran, Lebanon is not included in the agreement. Israel will retain complete freedom of action in Lebanon. The diplomatic process will decide on Lebanon between the governments of Israel and Lebanon, who have been negotiating under U.S. sponsorship. Iran, you stay in your box and don’t try to project your power regionally. Either way, that failed.
There has been an Israeli meltdown. Trump has been speaking not only openly about Israel, but has also been making statements about Iran, saying they have the right to defend themselves. They have the right to ballistic missiles because everyone else has them. They have the right to nuclear civilian power. These things were inconceivable, even a week ago.
We can draw all kinds of conclusions about what’s been happening in terms of the US-Israeli relationship. But we should not rush to any conclusions because, first of all, angry words are spoken regularly between allies, and these allies are no exception. We’re, of course, all familiar with the daily breathless reports from [Axios reporter] Barak Ravid about how angry various U.S. leaders are with this with their Israeli proxy. Then this never has any policy implications. This could be different for several reasons.
First of all, unlike Biden, Trump does not support Israel based on a fanatical ideological devotion; he supports Israel because it’s good politics, from his perspective. It’s very good for his campaign chest to have people like [pro-Israel GOP megadonor] Miriam Adelson, and others pour huge amounts into his election campaign, and it’s good policy in terms of Israel furthering u.s interests in the Middle East
However, there’s been a sea change in that because the Iran war is beginning to have an impact on Republican constituencies, similar to the impact the Gaza genocide had on Democratic constituencies. So, the electoral cost or price of distancing oneself from Israel on the Republican side of the arena is rapidly diminishing compared to before.
Second, Trump excels at two things. It’s not policy, economics, business, or anything. The two things he genuinely excels at and that no one can take away from him are demagoguery and opportunism.
Given not only the issues we were just discussing, but also the growing criticism of him as having failed, lost, sold out, and capitulated. We’re talking about an exceptionally thin-skinned individual here; he wouldn’t hesitate to blame it all on Netanyahu or even on Israel and throw them under the bus. One could even see him blaming it all on “The Jews”, anything to save his skin, he wouldn’t think twice about doing that, whereas Biden would sacrifice his own children and grandchildren before speaking ill of Israel.
Will this have a structural, long-term impact on the U.S.-Israeli relationship? It’s too early to tell. But if we look beyond angry statements being made by Americans and Israelis and and and if we look at the strategic realities, once it begins to seep in, how much the U.S. has weakened itself in its relations with both its allies and its adversaries, in terms of the damage done to the global economy, in terms of the damage done to U.S. weapons inventories, and so on. You put that together with what I think is part of the untold story of this war: an influence increasingly exercised in Washington by the Gulf Arab states. I think we could be looking, I’m not going to call it a rupture, but I think we could be looking at the beginnings of a transformation of the U.S.-Israeli relationship, in a way similar to what we’ve seen in the U.S. relationship with, for example, NATO, South Korea, and others.
I was reading a quote from an Iranian commander this morning, in which he said the “Axis of Resistance” has emerged stronger as a result of the war. We’ve talked about how Iran won this. What does that mean for the country, either internally or on the global stage, and what does it mean for governments in the region that have conflicted with the U.S. and Israel?
Iran as a state has indisputably emerged victorious and stronger from this confrontation. But let’s not pretend it doesn’t face very, very severe challenges of its own.
Here, primarily domestically. They had these huge protests over the winter, which, even factoring in all the foreign incitement, at root also reflected genuine widespread domestic discontent at the very least about the economic conditions in Iran. Those conditions are not going to be resolved by several tens of billions of dollars in unfrozen Iranian assets being returned to the country.
The way Iranian leadership manages the discontent of its own population, how it deals with domestic policy is going to be absolutely vital in the coming period, particularly because you can rest assured that the United States, the Israelis, and most certainly the Europeans in tow, and probably also you know a few of the other regional states, will be working very hard to seek to destabilize Iran from from within in the coming period.
So I think you know those two factors need to be taken into account. If you look at it in terms of the “Axis of Resistance.” Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Palestine have been severely battered. You’ve had the Gaza genocide, needless to say. You’re now having unprecedented violence and ethnic cleansing and so on in the West Bank. And on the other side of the ledger, the question of Palestine is once again front and center on the regional and international agenda, and the idea of Saudi Arabia normalizing relations with Israel and in the foreseeable future. On the best of days, absolute zero is absolute zero, so that’s number one. You look at Syria, and the Assad regime has been ousted. Syria is now ruled by a regime that’s very hostile to Iran. Lebanon is, I think, the key issue here.
Will Iran be able to leverage this agreement not only to halt Israeli aggression in Lebanon and
But to compel the U.S., but also to compel an Israeli withdrawal to the positions it held in November 2024? If it does so now, that would not only be a huge achievement for Iran, but it would also be a huge achievement for Hezbollah, and it would be a massive defeat for the current Lebanese government. It would transform domestic relations within Lebanon to Iran and Hezbollah’s advantage at the expense of not just Israel but also the Lebanese government and its sponsors in Washington, Paris, and Brussels.
So that’s a key issue to look at. More broadly, you know people in the region have seen what happened. Iran negotiated in good faith, signed an agreement in good faith, implemented it in good faith, and what it got in exchange was the renunciation of that agreement and two wars. When it fought back, miraculously, all of a sudden, it managed to achieve everything that had been promised to it by diplomacy but never delivered. So they’ll be looking at their own leaders and governments and saying, you know, why are you so passive and meek, and quiescent?
Interestingly, Egyptian President Sisi, who we haven’t heard from since the late 19th century, is now making statements demanding that Israel stop expanding its zone of control in the Gaza Strip because he’s feeling the heat. And then, of course, there’s Yemen, where I would argue that Ansarallah, the Houthis, have also been strengthened as a result of recent developments. So, of course, the other challenge Iran faces is repairing its relations with its neighbors across the Persian Gulf.
Now, there are signs that Saudi Arabia has already embarked on that course, that the UAE, for all its belligerency, is seeking a kind of anced non-aggression pact with Iran. Will Iran and Oman be able to produce a formula that provides both of them with “management fees” through the Strait of Hormuz? Oman, I don’t think, would do so, if that involves defiance of Saudi Arabia and the other GCC states. But if it can do so and does do so, that will send, I think, an important signal. So, short answer, the region is in flux. Longer answer, it is in flux in a way that probably benefits Iran more than others.
