By John Aziz
Wednesday, June 24, 2026
The U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding—signed by
President Donald Trump at the palace of Versailles—is supposed to stop
hostilities between the two countries, reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and result
in Iran’s commitment to never develop nuclear weapons. It’s a bargain made on
an old hope that has enamored American diplomats and presidents alike for
decades: that the Islamic Republic of Iran—the theocratic state where the
leadership ritualistically chants “death to America”—can be coaxed, pressured,
flattered, bribed, or frightened into becoming a normal state, with good
relations with its neighbors.
It may be possible to believe that from thousands of
miles away. Meanwhile, Iran’s neighbors have lived with the Islamic Republic.
They know its leaders, past and present, far more intimately than American
policymakers do. They are the ones living under threat from Iranian ballistic
missiles and drones. They are the ones living with Iranian-backed militias on
their borders: Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, Shiite militias in
Iraq, and Hamas in Gaza.
During the war—rather than solely firing on those with
whom it was at war—Iran fired repeatedly on multiple other countries around it,
including targeting civilian infrastructure in those countries. Saudi Arabia
intercepted Iranian missiles and drones. So did the United Arab Emirates and Jordan. Iranian missiles and drones were launched toward
Qatar, and Qatari air defenses intercepted attacks. The war also threatened
Qatar’s gas economy. Iranian missiles damaged
Ras Laffan, the center of Qatar’s natural gas industry. Missile and drone attacks struck Kuwait International Airport, killing
one person, injuring dozens, damaging a terminal, and forcing flights to be
suspended or diverted.
Just months after these nations found themselves having
to fend off Iranian aggression, their reaction to the 14-point memorandum has
been mixed.
For Saudi Arabia, the war exposed the danger that Iran
could drag the kingdom’s economy into a crisis it did not make itself. Riyadh
has spent years trying to make the country less dependent on energy exports. It
has attempted this by building new industries, attracting foreign capital,
expanding tourism, hosting high-profile international events like boxing
matches, creating private-sector jobs, and liberalizing restrictive social
norms in the country, including allowing women to drive.
This transformation requires confidence. Investors have
to believe that Saudi Arabia is stable. Tourists have to believe that the
country is safe to visit—otherwise they won’t show up. Companies have to
believe that their staff, buildings, supply chains, data centers, and other
infrastructure will not be caught in a regional war.
The war with Iran threatened Saudi modernization even
without Iran needing to fire a missile directly at Riyadh. When the Strait of
Hormuz is disrupted, the Gulf region looks unstable. When shipping lanes are
threatened, insurance costs rise, and investors start pricing in geopolitical
risk. When Iran shakes the region, it reminds international investors that
Saudi Arabia still sits inside a dangerous neighborhood.
That is why Saudi support for the MOU will be careful and
conditional. Riyadh welcomed the agreement, but Reuters later reported that there was deep unease among Gulf allies
about the deal’s failure to limit Iran’s ballistic missiles and the possibility
that Tehran could gain leverage over security arrangements around the Strait of
Hormuz. The kingdom stressed that the deal should lead to a permanent
settlement that takes into account the “security interests of countries in the
region.”
In other words, the Saudis want strict verification of
and limits on Iran’s nuclear work, along with assurances that Tehran cannot use
the same pattern of behavior again: threaten energy flows out of the strait,
extract relief from its neighbors, and rebuild its military capabilities.
For the UAE, the war was a direct challenge to the
country’s whole commercial model. The Emirati government—similar to the
Saudis—wants the world to believe business can flow through the UAE safely and
predictably. Disruption to the Strait of Hormuz attacks that promise at its
root. Every tanker delay, shipping warning, insurance spike, drone incident,
and rumor of escalation makes the UAE look less like an insulated hub for trade
and more like a risky state trapped inside Iran’s crisis radius. The UAE welcomed the MOU. Its leadership is calling for an
immediate halt to hostilities and freedom of navigation through the Strait of
Hormuz.
Jordan also hailed the ceasefire as a positive step toward
“regional stability” and “lasting calm.” But lasting calm for Amman means more
than a pause between Washington and Tehran. Jordan shares borders with Iraq,
Syria, Israel, the West Bank, and Saudi Arabia. When Iran pushes weapons
through Syria, when Iranian-backed militias operate in Iraq, when Hezbollah
escalates hostilities with Israel from Lebanon, and when Hamas or the
Palestinian Islamic Jihad act, Jordan feels it. Missiles passing through
Jordanian airspace is one version of the problem. Weapons smuggling through
Syria is another. Drug trafficking, refugee pressure, and unrest related to the
Palestinian issue are others.
For Qatar, the war has been a test of its diplomatic
credibility. Doha helped sustain talks to end the fighting between the U.S. and
Iran and emerged as one of the few actors able to speak to both sides.
The Qataris’ own statement on the MOU called it an
important step toward “enhancing prospects for sustainable peace and economic
growth at both the regional and international levels”. Qatar also praised
Washington and Tehran for their commitment to resolving differences through negotiations
and peaceful means.
Because it shares the world’s largest natural gas field
with Iran, Qatar also had the strongest material reason to want this war
brought under control quickly. A wider conflict involving Iranian energy
infrastructure, the strait, or the Gulf’s shipping lanes would threaten Qatar’s
core national interest, so Doha is happy. The deal, more than anything else,
preserves Qatar’s role as mediator.
The MOU is exactly the kind of outcome Qatar’s foreign
policy is designed to produce: not the defeat of Iran, and not the dismantling
of Iran’s regional networks, but the containment of escalation through a
process in which Qatar’s involvement remains necessary. That is why Doha can
sound much happier than its neighbors.
For Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Jordan, the central
question is whether any eventual agreement negotiated with the U.S. will
restrain Iran. For Qatar, the immediate victory is that the United States
remains dependent on Qatari mediation, and Doha’s balancing act survives
another crisis.
But the real danger of the MOU is that it sends a
message—both to Iran and to other bad actors in the region—that blackmail and
terrorism work.
Iran fired across the region. It threatened the world’s
energy supply. It hit or endangered countries that had nothing to do with the
conflict, other than their proximity to it. It attacked airports, tankers, gas
fields, refineries, and American military bases. Then it wore Donald Trump down
until it received promises of more than $300 billion in private investment in the Islamic Republic, ostensibly from
its neighboring countries.
The Trump administration wants to call this realism and
de-escalation. But more realistically, what the Islamic Republic is getting is
more time to prepare for the next round of regional destabilization. And time
is what the Islamic Republic needs most.
Time to repair air defenses. Time to rebuild command
structures. Time to replenish Hezbollah, the Houthis, Iraqi militias, Hamas,
and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Time to reopen smuggling routes through
Syria and Iraq. Time to rebuild missile stocks. Time, once again, to
surreptitiously try to build a nuclear weapon.
Can Iran still threaten the Strait of Hormuz whenever it
needs leverage? Can it still fire missiles and drones at Gulf states? Can it
still arm militias on Arab borders? Can it still use Lebanon, Syria, Iraq,
Yemen, and Gaza as pressure points? Can it still extract concessions by making
the region unsafe?
If the answer is yes, then the MOU, and any more
seemingly permanent agreement that may result from subsequent negotiations,
amount to simply kicking the can down the road. It’s allowing a regime that is
ideologically hostile to America and the West more room to cause more trouble,
sooner or later.
The Islamic regime in Iran is not a normal government
representing a normal national interest. It is an authoritarian apparatus that
survives by coercing its own society. In 2025 and 2026, as Iranians protested
economic collapse, corruption, and political repression, the regime answered
with mass arrests, mass killings, internet shutdowns, secret detentions, and
show trials of dissidents.
Trump promised that he would bring help to the Iranian
protesters. But if the Iranian regime holds onto power and gets a chance to
consolidate its grip on the nation, Trump has very much fallen short of what he
claimed he would do.
What’s the alternative to giving in to the Iranian
regime’s blackmail? Tell the Iranians to kick rocks, and engineer a way around
the strait’s strategic vulnerability.
The United States, Europe, Japan, India, South Korea, and
the Gulf states should treat dependence on the strait as a strategic
vulnerability to be engineered away. That means a massive expansion of
pipelines from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea, and the
Mediterranean. It means more petroleum export terminals outside the Strait of
Hormuz; more storage in Oman, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the eastern
Mediterranean; and more liquefied natural gas capacity that does not require
Qatari or Emirati cargoes to pass under Iran’s guard. It also means long-term
contracts that reward producers who can deliver energy without entering Hormuz.
And it requires Iran’s neighbors to build the military
architecture to protect the transition: permanent mine-clearing forces,
anti-drone coverage, missile defense, protected convoy lanes, and automatic
penalties on Iran for every attempt to threaten shipping. The goal should be
blunt: make the Strait of Hormuz less important every year until Tehran can no
longer hold the world economy hostage from its shoreline. If Iran wants to be a
normal neighbor, it can trade like one. Until then, the world should build as
if the strait is already compromised.
That is the fault line under the MOU. Everyone wants the
war to stop. Everyone wants the strait to reopen. But there are two ways that
can play out. One is that the region can live with the Islamic Republic so long
as the situation is managed and mediated. The other is that every payment
teaches Iran that it is winning and that it can win more by escalating again,
by building proxy militias across the region that launch regional wars, as
Hamas did on October 7, 2023.
Washington may celebrate that as diplomacy. To many in
the Gulf and the Levant, it looks more like a countdown to destruction.
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