All That for This?

By Noah Rothman

Friday, June 12, 2026

 

It’s unwise to invest too much emotional and intellectual energy in the selectively leaked terms of the deal that will supposedly end the conflict between the United States and Iran. It’s even more foolish to give undue credence to those leaks when they’re coming exclusively from the Iranian side of this equation.

 

But the president sure seemed excited about the deal’s prospects on Thursday afternoon. “We ended the war with Iran today,” Trump declared after abruptly calling off a new round of strikes on Iran that he’d previewed earlier that morning (having already called off ongoing strikes on Iranian targets mid-sortie on Wednesday night at, the president stressed, Iran’s request). The terms to which Iran consented were apparently so acceptable to Trump that he publicly mused about sending his vice president to Europe for a signing ceremony next week.

 

So, what’s in the deal? According to Iran’s Mehr news agency, just about everything they could ever want:

 

 

Some of these concessions conflict with the president’s stated goals at the outset of this war, like an American commitment “not to interfere in Iran’s internal affairs.” The administration made countless promises to the oppressed Iranian people that America would support their aspirations to overthrow their tyrannical leaders. In this deal, those promises would be broken.

 

Giving up on seeking limits to Iran’s ballistic missile program and its support for its terrorist proxy network would ensure that this deal bears a striking resemblance to Barack Obama’s JCPOA, but Trump’s deal would be even weaker. The Memorandum of Understanding commits both parties only to reembark on an endless series of talks over the status of Iran’s program, all while it uses up-front sanctions relief to reconstitute its force projection capabilities both inside Iran’s borders and throughout the Middle East.

 

Baking Israel’s defensive operations against Hezbollah into this accord at Iran’s request further sacrifices leverage that Trump might have used to compel Iran to be more pliant in these talks. In his administration’s very public arguments with itself over this deal and the degree to which Israel represents an obstacle to it, Trump seemed to have ruled out squeezing the Iranians on all fronts — including southern Lebanon. The terms of this arrangement appear to confirm that Trump did provide Iran with this unreciprocated concession.

 

It’s prudent to be skeptical of the Islamic Republic’s conception of what the deal entails. Western media outlets have, however, disputed Iran’s version of events only at the margins.

 

The “sticking point” that was resolved to Trump’s satisfaction when he called off Thursday’s strikes, according to CNN, was over how “future negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program will unfold and the sequencing of financial relief for Iran.” Axios reports that sanctions relief and the release of frozen Iranian assets will be tied to Iran’s observed adherence to the deal and progress in its implementation. The Strait of Hormuz, for example, would have to be fully open before Iran gets its sweeteners.

 

We’ve been burned before. No deal should be considered final until both parties have put pen to paper. What we’re looking at here, however, are not the terms of a cease-fire that leave the United States in a stronger position than it occupied at the start of the war. It’s an agreement to return to the pre-war status quo — endless talks over a nuclear program that is largely in tatters. What would we be talking about but the scale of the bribe necessary to get Iran to drop its nuclear ambitions?

 

Meanwhile, Trump’s signature will codify a new reality: that a hostile power can, through even the modest application of force, choke off a contested waterway, lay claim to international waters, and force the world’s most powerful naval power to back down. China is all but certain to test this proposition with far more resources and competence than the Iranians.

 

Maybe Trump will be the American president China tests. Perhaps that will be his successor’s lot. Either way, Trump’s legacy will loom over the future geopolitical crises this deal will render inevitable.