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The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) negotiated between the Trump administration and Iranian negotiators formally ends recent combat operations in the decades-long struggle pitting U.S.-led Mideast security architecture against Iranian revanchism.
Middle East residents, for the most part, are relieved to have a framework that ends over 100 days of wide-ranging attacks and economic instability. President Donald J. Trump presented the MoU as a prudent interim measure. His critics from the left and the right assailed him for first launching an unnecessary war, then concluding it on bad terms. Prominent neocons branded the MoU a “surrender” and “defeat” before the ink even dried.
Indignation over the MoU has taken many forms. Trump should never have gone to war and was duped by Netanyahu. He gave in too early. The U.S. held unique leverage against Iran if only it had kept up the attacks. The Iranians have emerged from the attacks emboldened and strengthened. The results differ little from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), but they come at a higher cost. Some observers give Trump credit for cutting his losses after making an ill-advised decision to enter the war.
As usual with this president, the truth is not so simple. Trumpian statecraft defies simple critiques, predictions, or conclusions. The MoU is not a surrender because he was not fighting a war for the overthrow of the Iranian regime—rhetoric notwithstanding. He aimed to inflict economic pain without inducing economic collapse.
Trump had in mind a limited war with clear aims and off-ramps rather than an open-ended war for the overthrow of the regime. The MoU thus marks a stage of negotiation, not the concluding judgment of the armed conflict of the past three months, thereby undercutting some of the most visceral negative responses to it.
War in Western culture is often seen as a binary equation: we are at war or we are at peace. War is so terrible that it can only be fought for the gravest of causes, and therefore should neither be started nor ended without grave consideration and soul-searching. Once a war of moral certainty is started, it constitutes strategic malpractice to end it prior to reaching final goals. Weakness and strength lie in the totality of aim and commitment.
War in the Eastern (and Middle Eastern) traditions is a bit less categorical. War can be seen as an extended series of campaigns with episodes of “hot war” and interludes of negotiation or “cold peace.” These traditions reflect an intertwining of fighting, negotiations, punishment, incentives, and compromise deals, often without overcapitulation or the overthrow of the antagonistic side. Perhaps a bit cynically, the expectation is that conflict is a recurring, if not normal, state of affairs, not a binary moral equation or critical path leading to climactic resolution.
The campaign against Iran begun by Israel and the U.S. on Feb. 28th of this year may be an episode of war in the Eastern sense, but it is clearly not one in the Western sense.
This accounts for some of the recent divergence between Netanyahu and Trump. The former sought the overthrow of the Iranian regime and perhaps the state itself, whereas the latter wanted a change in behavior and greater stability. The MoU’s critics believe that it is a singular endpoint to a Western war; Trump and the MoU’s supporters believe that it is one tool to pursue the incremental aims of an Eastern sort of war. Calling the MoU a capitulation, a failure, or Iran “losing the war but winning the negotiations” all miss this point. The MoU is a punctuation mark in the process of ending Iran’s nuclear weapons drive, but it is a proverbial comma rather than a period.
Some opponents of the MoU decry the fact that Iran was offered economic incentives to comply with its terms. That is a departure from nearly five decades of economic sanctions practice designed to isolate, and more recently, force compliance from Tehran on the nuclear file and regionally aggressive behavior.
Yet the various periods of containment—the Dual Containment in the 1990s, the Axis of Evil in the 2000s, and the Maximum Pressure campaign of the first Trump term—did not achieve the stated aims, as Iran developed deeper military and economic ties with both its patrons (Russia and China) and proxies (Hizballah, Houthis, Hamas, and the former Assad regime in Syria). The Abraham Accords seemed to offer the prospect of isolating Iran regionally, but the Sunni-majority states have cooled to the process in the wake of Israel’s extended military campaigns throughout the Middle East after the Oct. 7 attacks.
Research into coercive diplomacy shows that sanctions, punishment, and attempts to isolate usually fail without the addition of incentives and the support of broad regional coalitions.
In fact, one key lesson is that the likelihood of concessions from a targeted country rises significantly when a compromise solution is on the table. Iran has proven its durability to a wide variety of coercive measures because the psychology of resistance is deeply embedded in Iranian culture, and so is the bargaining mentality. Trump’s MoU attempts to leverage this logic to break the cycle of containment, punishment, and defiance from a target disinclined to concede easily.
U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance captured the premise in a speech last week. “I've seen skeptics of the deal—people say the Iranians will never change their behavior. Well, maybe that's true, and if so, they don't get any of the benefits of the bargain. But isn't it worth trying?” The Trump MoU is not the misstep critics claim it to be, nor does it destroy a working system of containment. It is an intentional play to change the psychological and practical dynamics of the Iran-U.S. competition in the region.
Measuring the MoU against models of total war or complete containment generates outrage, not insight, because those models do not accurately reflect Trump’s methods or end state. That end state, unsurprisingly, is to get to a deal—one that meets core U.S. interests (no nuclear weapons, low oil prices, enhanced regional stability, and integration) without open-ended costs. Whether his mixing of fighting, bombast, and negotiating works in the end remains to be seen, but that is clearly the game and goal.
It still might work. Aside from the fact that the MoU is contingent and reversible—in essence, an agreement to extend negotiations and ceasefire—it can be argued that while the tone of the document favors Tehran, the content favors Washington. Sanctions relief depends not only on Iranian actions, but on U.N. approval—and thus a second U.S. opt-out. While the resumption of oil-tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz relieves pressure on Iran gradually, it aids Western economies quickly. Massive damage incurred by military and nuclear targets in Iran in the past four months means that Iran will be licking its proverbial wounds and in greater need of continued implementation than the U.S.
There are interesting possibilities, though not certainties, in this document.
Iran’s recovery from war is now linked to an abundant oil supply and constructive behavior in the Gulf. Incentives for Iran to shift from being the regional pariah and would-be hegemon to an economic partner are in play. Negotiations and oil flow strengthen Trump’s hand heading into the November midterm elections—if the deal does not collapse. Domestically, the MoU allows Trump to continue balancing factions in his party, which view Israel as a sacrosanct strategic guide on one hand or as an expensive liability on the other.
Harry Truman has been quoted as saying, “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.” The MoU debate affirms the probity of the observation. Trump’s opponents predictably have savaged him over the interim negotiating document, but so have some of his ardent supporters in the press and in Congress.
We should remember that the MoU did not spring from Trump’s head extemporaneously. It was the product of long weeks, even months, of difficult discussions between U.S. and Iranian negotiators—with Qataris, Turks, Pakistanis, Saudis, Europeans, and others consulted and drawn into the discussions. As a snapshot of what the fighting has wrought so far and what the region can and will bear in real time, it is a reasonable attempt at conflict termination.
It is deeply unsatisfying for some observers that the MoU may lead to a modus vivendi in which Iran, as well as other regional countries, benefit. But regime replacement does not seem to be in the cards at a reasonable cost or on a reasonable timeline. The status quo of eroding containment offers little benefit for U.S. interests. In fact, it imposes enduring costs on the U.S. in an open-ended manner. Until a better or more realistic approach comes out of Washington, the MoU may well survive the scalding criticisms long enough to be tested on the ground. That would be progress of a sort.
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