The Mysterious MOU

Almost immediately after I published yesterday's blog post about a memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iran, considerably more news on the topic came out. First and foremost was word that the MOU had actually been signed on Sunday. I have a hard time imagining the administration of cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump signing such a long-awaited and important document and then not bothering to tell anyone for 24 hours, but that's what the administration is claiming. However, the text of the MOU has still not been released. What's going on with this mysterious MOU? What follows is my speculation.

As I have repeated for months now, the best that Trump could hope for in a deal with the Iranians would be a humiliating agreement. The only question now is just how humiliating. I think we can assume that if the MOU strongly favored the U.S., Trump would be tripping over himself to show the text. Since he is doing the opposite, it is reasonable to assume the results are also the opposite. This is not going to be a good deal for the United States. The Trump administration is most likely not revealing the text in order to give itself a few days to spin the MOU in ways that make it appear more positive than it really is. The delay also allows Trump to make it through the Group of Seven summit that he is currently attending in Evian-les-Bains, France, without having his humiliation displayed to the other leaders in attendance.

Over the weekend, a federal judge ordered that Trump's name be removed from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. When Trump's name was added, two bucket loaders were used, and the job was completed within a few hours. In contrast, to remove Trump's name, a huge scaffold was built, and then tarps hung in order to block views of Trump's name and to prevent observers from seeing Trump's name being removed. But that's not all. The scaffolding and tarps were kept up and still remained as recently as yesterday. The Trump administration clearly is hiding Trump's humiliation from the world. The exact same strategy is apparently being used with regard to the text of the MOU.

It is not just the American public that is unable to see the MOU's text. According to Israeli reporter Noga Tarnopolsky, even the government of Israel, who has obligations under the agreement, was refused when it requested to see the text. As I wrote yesterday, the Israelis were already extremely angry about the MOU, and this will likely make them apoplectic. The MOU reportedly calls for a ceasefire in Lebanon, something that the Israelis are reluctant to undertake.

Today at the G-7, Trump made a number of remarks that will trigger the Israelis even more. When asked if the Iran deal can survive an Israeli attack on Lebanon, Trump said that it could, but then went on to say:

Israel is fighting Hezbollah too long and too many people are being killed. You don't have to knock down an apartment house every time you are looking for somebody. Cause there are a lotta people in those apartment houses, and they are not all Hezbollah. That I can tell you. And I suggested to Israel to let Syria take care of Hezbollah. Cause to be honest with you, I think they'd do a better job of doing it...I didn't like that two hours before we were signing the agreement, there was an attack in Beirut...I did not like that. I let them know that...If Israel can't do the job without killing everyone else, Syria will do the job.

For those who have not been following developments in Syria, it is currently led by Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former al-Qaida-linked terrorist. During al-Sharaa's rule, minority religious communities including Christians, Druze, and Alawites have been massacred. Al-Sharaa and his government have no love for Hezbollah, having fought against the organization when it sided with former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Trump seems to be suggesting that al-Sharaa will do a better job of confronting Hezbollah without inflicting as much collateral damage. I am not sure that Trump is correct about that, but I am positive that the suggestion is not going to go down well with Israel and its supporters.

Trump was also asked if he is frustrated with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Trump responded by saying "no," but then went on to say:

I didn't like that he did an attack based on a... you know there was a very minor thing with some roads and he ends up...I saw that attack, I saw where that bomb went. That was vicious...that was too much. You know, you can do too much also...Without the United States, there would be no Israel. Without me, there would be no Israel. I've had a great relationship with Bibi, but now Bibi has to be more responsible with respect to Lebanon...No, I am not happy with the way Israel has handled themselves with Lebanon and with Hezbollah.

This sort of criticism of Israel from a U.S. president is unheard of and will probably land like a nuclear bomb in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. This illustrates just how successful Iran has been in linking the war in Lebanon to its own conflict. A good stock tip is to invest in companies that supply heartburn medicine to Israel because there is going to be a huge demand.

In lieu of releasing the text of the MOU, "senior administration officials" — one of whom was quite obviously Vice President and reply guy JD Vance — provided a background briefing for reporters. Elizabeth Hagedorn of Al-Monitor tweeted quotes from the briefing. According to her report, Trump, Vance, and the speaker of Iran's parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf electronically signed the MOU. Hagedorn quoted one official as saying, "We are prepared to release frozen funds, and we are prepared to release sanctions." Nahal Toosi of Politico was also present for the briefing and similarly tweeted what was said. She, however, described herself as "in some ways more confused now than before the call." Toosi quoted an official as saying, "I think what you'll see is that we are prepared to release frozen funds, and we are prepared to release sanctions, and we'll do some small gestures of that in the beginning, if they make some small gestures to us." Both reporters provided a similar quote related to Lebanon. Toosi's version was:

Their withdrawal was not a condition of the deal. The deal is a ceasefire, and it will not be a one-way ceasefire, meaning that if Iran is not able to control Hezbollah, and if they attack Israeli positions or Israeli towns, Israel will have the right to defend themselves and respond.

To my mind, this is very problematic. Israel now occupies positions throughout southern Lebanon. If the agreement allows those positions to remain, Israel will continue to strengthen them. Moreover, Israel does not allow Lebanese civilians to return to areas near their positions. This means that Israel will be establishing a long-term occupation of southern Lebanon that will cause significant displacement of Lebanese civilians. Moreover, Hezbollah will surely attack occupation forces. I assume that as long as Israel's subsequent retaliation is confined to southern Lebanon rather than Beirut and does not result in unnecessary civilian death and destruction, both the U.S. and Iran will ignore it. However, I am pessimistic, as Trump seems to be as well, that Israel will react with such restraint. This will be particularly true if Israel does not want the MOU to succeed, which it clearly doesn't. It is easy to predict a Hezbollah attack on an Israeli outpost in Lebanon provoking an Israeli bombing of Beirut which, in turn, will endanger the U.S.-Iran peace process.

What has become clear about the MOU, even without seeing the text, is that it does not contain a lot of detail. Therefore, both the U.S. and Iran are able to interpret parts of it differently. For instance, the U.S. says that the Strait of Hormuz will be open to traffic without tolls. Iran agrees, but says that it will charge unspecified "fees." There have been reports that Iran will receive $300 billion in investment funds. The U.S. says that Iran will not receive any money from the United States. However, Vance did concede that such money could be coming from U.S. allies in the Gulf. The MOU apparently does say that Iran will not pursue a nuclear weapon. This is not a new concession, but rather one that was included in the agreement made by former President Barack Obama. All other nuclear issues, however, are left to be negotiated over the next 60 days.

Basically, it appears that the U.S. will begin the process of lifting sanctions and opening the flow of money to Iran. Indeed, Alex Ward of the Wall Street Journal reports that sanctions on Iranian petroleum have already been lifted, and Iran can freely sell its oil. In addition, the U.S. will lift its naval blockade on the Strait of Hormuz. In exchange, Iran, in addition to promising not to develop nuclear weapons, will begin the process of allowing ships through the strait. This is a pretty one-sided agreement that leaves Iran in a significantly better position than it was before the war. Talking to the press today in France, Trump appeared to concede that there is not a lot in the MOU in the way of Iranian concessions. He said, "This agreement is about one thing — that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. Never ever ever. The rest of it is irrelevant, frankly." This is a huge step back from earlier grandiose objectives that Trump had outlined.

Given what we now know, Iran repeated an assurance regarding nuclear weapons that had previously been part of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action agreed to by Obama and ripped up by Trump, agreed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz — albeit with "fees" — which had been open before Trump's war, and in exchange is getting sanctions relief. This can hardly be seen as anything other than a significant victory for Iran. The fact that Trump lost this war is already starting to be widely acknowledged. Yesterday, the New York Times ran an editorial titled, "President Trump Lost This War" which said, "The United States is emerging weaker — militarily, diplomatically and economically — and will pay strategic costs for years to come." The editorial concluded by saying that Trump has "agreed to a peace framework that the entire world understands is a defeat for him." The Times is accurate in its assessment. The danger, however, is that if such evaluations become sufficiently widespread, Trump will back away from the deal and restart the war. That would be even worse. The dilemma now is how to correctly acknowledge the losing outcome of this war without causing Trump to resort to even more terrible measures.