Surrender

By Mike Nelson

Thursday, June 18, 2026

 

On Tuesday night, Bloomberg published the text of the 14-point memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iran that effectively ends the conflict between those two countries, the full details of which the Trump administration had seemed so resistant to disclose. We can now see why. While not as disastrous as it might have been, it largely amounts to American concessions to many Iranian demands in exchange for hollow promises and hopes of future Iranian flexibility, none of which actually amounts to anything in the short term. In the aftermath of three days of atrocious communications about the deal to which they agreed, White House representatives read the MOU on a call with several press outlets, with slight variations from what was reported by Bloomberg.

 

There are many legitimate criticisms of what is in the MOU, but of equal concern is what is not specified in the document. Unlike the popular expression, the devil isn’t in the details of this agreement; it’s in the broad strokes—gaps in specificity so wide they make clear the differences in how the U.S. and Iranian governments attempted to spin this to their domestic audiences over the past several days. But beyond the spin, these gaps leave a great deal of space for the Iranians to take advantage, using their most liberal interpretation of the terms while loudly declaring they are still in compliance. We should expect that Iran will take the full opportunity to exploit vague language—because what is not agreed to cannot be enforced, and what cannot be enforced should not be hoped for. Despite Vice President J.D. Vance’s seeming amusement that we can talk directly to Iranian leaders, to quote Greg Graffin, “contracts determine the best friendships.”

 

The memorandum—which Axios reported was signed Wednesday, despite a planned ceremony Friday in Switzerland— does end the fighting that began on February 28 and reopens the Strait of Hormuz through a series of steps over 60 days. Upon signing, the United States will lift the blockade of shipping transiting to and from Iran. Iran will end its disruption of maritime traffic, with up to 30 days to remove deployed mines. Since the beginning of the conflict, this maritime disruption has been the greatest source of both Iranian leverage and of pressure weighing on President Donald Trump, transforming him from the man making bold statements about unconditional surrender and picking the next ayatollah to demonstrating the kind of desperation for an end to the conflict that led to this agreement. But while a return to the free flow of global commerce is inherently good and necessary, we shouldn’t chalk this up as a win. Like a magician using distraction to pull off a trick, Iran made the war about the strait and the economic woes its disruption caused, getting the administration to take its eye off the causes for initiating the war and any of the goals it said we would achieve through it.

 

The version of the MOU dictated by senior U.S. sources, which differs slightly from the text published by Bloomberg, prohibits any kind of tolling or fees on shipping during the 60 day period, but seems to open to door to such a shake-down scheme afterwards when it states, “The Islamic Republic of Iran will conduct dialogue with the Sultanate of Oman to define the future administration and maritime services in the Strait of Hormuz.”

 

Whether Iran ever attempts to extort international shipping or not, it will enjoy an influx of cash under this agreement. During his marathon media day selling this deal and preemptively spinning it, Vance swore the Iranians would not get the financial incentives until they deliver verifiable progress. While that appears to be true of $300 billion intended for Iran’s “rehabilitation and economic development,” Vance was not entirely honest, lying by omission about immediate and short-term benefits to the regime. Immediately upon signing, the U.S. agrees to issue sanctions waivers allowing Iran to export and sell oil, potentially netting the regime billions of dollars without any further need for concessions or compliance. The U.S. also agrees to return Iran’s frozen assets—upward of $100 billion— with the only stipulation being the parties “mutually agree on the procedures related to the release of these funds during the negotiations.” I think it’s highly likely that Iran will demand access to these assets, claiming “progress,” as they continue to, in the president’s words, tap us along in the negotiation period, the same way it extorted us for preconditions and demands in the lead-up to this.

 

But what about any of the conditions Trump said were in America's interests throughout the war? There are many, including myself, who said this agreement seemed to copy the JCPOA’s meaningless promise that Iran would never pursue a nuclear weapon. The wording in the dictated version of the MOU is, in fact, slightly weaker: “The Islamic Republic of Iran reaffirms that it shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons.” This phrasing does not include the previous assurances never to “seek” them. While I’m not sure there are varying levels of meaninglessness in Iranian promises, by the letter of the law, this would seem to allow for continued research short of some breakout threshold.

 

Setting this watered-down assurance aside, the final disposition of Iran’s nuclear program is completely unclear, nominally to be determined through the course of this 60-day period of negotiations. But the language in the document doesn’t inspire confidence that the United States is going to restrain Iran’s nuclear program stringently—“The two parties also agreed to discuss the issue of enrichment and other mutually agreed matters related to the Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear needs, based on a satisfactory framework being agreed upon in the final deal.” This leaves a lot of wiggle room for the right of domestic research and enrichment, and we seem to already be conceding to Iran keeping its existing highly enriched uranium with the language that it will be “downblend(ed) on site.” This isn’t surprising since President Trump said Tuesday of the uranium, “You could make the case, why even bother? It’s not very valuable stuff.” Even if we do resist a final agreement that would codify an unacceptable nuclear program, the MOU specifies that the 60-day period can be extended indefinitely by mutual agreement. It seems highly likely that a president who has so clearly demonstrated his lack of interest and attention will continue agreeing to extensions for as long as it takes for him to be able to continue that disinterest in dealing with the difficult situation he has left unresolved.

 

One of the other explicit goals of the war was to sever the links between Iran and its proxy militias. In remarks during a Medal of Honor award ceremony on March 2, President Trump said, “Finally, we're ensuring that the Iranian regime cannot continue to arm, fund, and direct terrorist armies outside of their borders." Not only does the MOU extend a blanket of protection over Hezbollah (“an immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon”), it attempts to bind Israel (“the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran and their allies in the current war,”) which was not a party to the negotiations and had to find out the details the same we all did after the United States refused to provide them a copy of the MOU. Despite grandiose hopes that the end of this conflict would lead to regional cooperation and an expansion of the Abraham Accords, the result of this MOU and the two weeks leading up to it are strengthened ties between Iran and its malign network and the simultaneous marginalization of Israel and its right to defend itself from that network.

 

There is, notably, nothing in the MOU that—despite previous characterizations from administration sources—prohibits Iran from funding and sponsoring these networks, or from rebuilding and maintaining their drone and missile capabilities. In fact, despite the destruction of the Iranian missile program being an explicit and repeated goal of the campaign, much like his softened stance on the enriched uranium, the president suggested at the G7 summit that Iran should be able to retain this capability.

 

Finally, and shamefully, the agreement puts a final nail in the coffin of the Iranian people’s hopes that the United States would support their cries for freedom. “The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States undertake to respect each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and to refrain from interfering in each other’s internal affairs.” A conflict that started with the hopeful protests of a people pushing back against almost five decades of oppression ends with the country meant to be the beacon of freedom agreeing to turn a blind eye to the slaughter of 30,000 Iranians, or the inevitable continued crackdowns, executions, and repression. No matter how he wishes to run from it now, we should never forget the president’s undeniably clear messages to the Iranian people when he thought this would be easy—“help is on the way,” “the hour of your liberation is at hand.” Vance, already having shown his callous disregard for the deaths of Ukrainians, adds the Iranian people to the mix in his attempt to carry his boss’s water, “if the Iranian people want to rise up, great. That's their business. That's between them and their government.”

 

The conflict ends with a seeming disregard for the disposition of uranium we said we were fighting to secure, for the arsenal of missiles we said we were seeking to destroy, and for the oppressed Iranians we promised we were going to help. The war ends with nothing of value to show for it. We will have killed thousands of Iranians, destroyed hundreds of missile launchers and air defense systems, but to what end? For the privilege of achieving nothing quantifiable, we have provided Iran with proof of a strategic deterrent it can exercise at any time, provided the regime with access to a massive cash influx, rebuilt its relationship with proxies that was damaged after October 7, damaged our alliances and relationships, spent billions of dollars, expended a large percentage of our critically short precision munitions, and lost 13 American lives, to say nothing of the hundreds of wounded. As with so many of his missteps or failures, President Trump will likely try to categorize this as a win, shift the way it is remembered with the passage of time, blame someone else, or just hope it fades from memory as he moves on to what he deems truly important business, like ballrooms and reflecting pools. But this will likely be the largest and costliest error of his presidency, and one for which he deserves permanent shame.