Transcription
Let me ask you a question that I think almost nobody is asking right now. If the United States and Iran sign a peace deal on June 17th that lasts a random and both presidents put their signatures on it and Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt all mediated it and the world exhaled and said, "Okay, it's over." Then why 9 days later is the US military striking Iran again? Why is Iran hitting US military positions in Kuwait and Bahrain? Why is Bahrain condemning Iranian drone strikes as a flagrant violation of sovereignty? Why has the UK Maritime Trade Operations just raised its threat level in the Strait of Hormuz to substantial? Why are ships deactivating their transponders to sneak through the money coastline under the cover of night? And perhaps most crucially, why does Iran say it's not violating the ceasefire? The United States says it's not violating the ceasefire and yet we are watching them blow each other up in real time. That is a question I want to answer today.
Because what's happening right now is not a breakdown. It's not a failure. It might actually be in the strangest and most disturbing way the deal working exactly as intended for one side at least. And to understand that, I have to take you back not just to June 17th, not just to April. I need to take you to February 28th, 2026 because that is a day the world changed and most people still don't fully understand what happened or why.
It was a Tuesday morning mid-morning, February 28th, and nearly 900 US and Israeli strikes hit Iran in the first 12 hours alone. Think about that number. 900 strikes in 12 hours. That is not a warning shot. That is not a message. That is a demolition. The operation was code-named Operation Epic Fury by the United States and Operation Roaring Lion by Israel. The targets were Iranian missile stockpiles, air defenses, military command infrastructure, and Iranian leadership itself. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who had ruled Iran for 35 years, was killed. Ali Larijani, one of the key figures in the very nuclear negotiations happening at the time, was killed. Let me say that again. Iran and the United States were in indirect nuclear negotiations in Oman in February 2026. Iran had even made a surprising offer, according to reporting at the time, and both sides had agreed to meet again in Vienna for technical follow-up talks. In the middle of those negotiations, the bombs fell. This is the part that doesn't get discussed enough. The strikes on February 28th were not a response to an Iranian attack. They happened during during diplomatic The United States had already amassed a military presence in the region not seen since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Two carrier strike groups, hundreds of aircraft, and when the window opened, they acted.
Now, what was the context? Iran was already in a catastrophically weakened position. The economy was in free fall. The Iranian rial had collapsed. Mass protests had erupted in late December 2025, the largest since the 1979 revolution. Driven by surging inflation, a collapsing currency, and a population that had simply run out of patience. The regime responded with massacres, thousands killed. An internet blackout that lasted 88 days, the longest nationwide internet shutdown in modern history, according to the monitoring group NetBlocks. Iran's military position was equally battered. Israel had already conducted the 12-day war in June 2025 targeting Iranian military and nuclear facilities. Years of sanctions have hollowed out Iran's defense industrial base. It's proxy network, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, had been severely degraded by Israeli strikes from 2023 onwards. The calculation in Washington and Tel Aviv was essentially this. Iran has never been weaker. The cost of military action has never been lower. The window may never open again like this. And so Operation Epic Fury was born.
What came next was chaos, but a specific kind of chaos. Iran struck back. Missiles and drones rained on Israel, on US military bases across the region, on Arab Gulf states, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, who Iran regarded as complicit. The Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20% of the world's oil flows, was blocked. Almost overnight, fuel prices spiked across Asia. Global shipping companies began rerouting around the Cape of Good Hope. The International Energy Agency released emergency oil reserves. Russia temporarily had sanctions waived so its oil could keep flowing. Iran called its counteroffensive Operation True Promise Four. Some media outlets called the conflict the Third Gulf War. In Iran, state media called it the Third Imposed War. Because it was Ramadan when the bombing started, others called it the Ramadan War. But here's what matters. Despite everything, despite the death of Khamenei, despite the economic devastation, despite 88 days of internet blackout, despite the military hammering, Iran did not collapse. It kept fighting. It kept the Strait of Hormuz closed. And that was the leverage, because closing the Strait of Hormuz is not just Iran's problem, it is the world's problem. Every day that straight stays closed, economies bleed. And so the United States, which had gone to war partly to demonstrate strength, now needed a deal. This is something I want you to hold on to because it shapes everything that comes after. The US needed a deal almost as much as Iran did. That tension between American military dominance and Iranian economic leverage is the engine that has been running the entire sequence of events from April through today.
The The first ceasefire came on April 7th, 38 days into the war. It was fragile from the start. The Strait of Hormuz remained contested. Both sides accused each other of violations almost immediately. Iran launched ballistic missiles at Israel. Israel struck southern Lebanon. The United States struck Iranian targets. Round and round. Meanwhile, negotiations moved through a labyrinth of mediators. Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt. The key talks happened in Islamabad, hence the eventual name of the final agreement. The negotiating teams were extraordinary in scale. The US sent 300 people led by Vice President J.D. Vance alongside Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. Iran sent 70. Pakistan's team was led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Field Marshal Asim Munir, and Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar. They talked for 21 hours straight across three rounds, the first indirect, the second and third direct. And still it took until June 12th to agree on final text. Then on June 17th, with Trump signing at a dinner table in the Palace of Versailles after the G7 summit with French President Macron and Iranian President Masoud Peseshkian signing in Tehran, the Islamabad Memorandum was born. 14 points. Let me tell you what it actually says. Because this matters enormously for understanding what's happening right now. Point one. An immediate and permanent end to the war on all fronts, including Lebanon. Point five. Iran will make arrangements for the safe passage of commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz with no charge for 60 days only. Point six. The United States and regional partners will develop a plan with at least 300 billion dollars for the reconstruction and economic development of Iran. Point eight. Iran reaffirms it will not develop nuclear weapons and agrees to down plan a stockpile of highly enriched uranium under IAEA supervision with a minimum methodology being dilution with lower grade material. And critically, the full final deal on nuclear issues, enrichment levels, permanent stockpile arrangements, everything has not been agreed. It is deferred to future negotiations during the 60-day period. So, what was signed was not peace. It was a framework for negotiating peace with a 60-day clock ticking.
Now, I want to come to this week because this is where everything crystallizes. On June 21st, just four days after the Islamabad memorandum was signed, President Trump ordered the bombing of Iran's Fordow uranium enrichment facility, the Natanz nuclear facility, and the Isfahan nuclear technology and research center. Read that again. Four days after signing a memorandum of understanding, the United States bombed Iran's nuclear facilities. Why? Because Trump was using bunker buster bombs as leverage. He was sending a message that even a signed agreement doesn't guarantee restraint. That American military capability remains on the table, activated or deactivated at his discretion. On June 24th, Trump declared another ceasefire. Then on June 25th and 26th, Iran launched drone attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian forces struck a container ship, then a Panama-flagged tanker called the M/T Kiku. The US military struck back, targeting Iranian missile and drone storage locations, coastal radar sites, surveillance infrastructure, and mine-laying capabilities. Iran then struck US military positions in Kuwait and Bahrain. Bahrain called it a blatant violation of sovereignty. The UK raised its maritime threat level to substantial and warned of mines in the strait. And here's where the language becomes absolutely fascinating because it tells you everything. Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said, and I want you to pay close attention to this, that clause five of the Islama Memorandum gives Iran authority over passage arrangements in the Strait of Hormuz. Therefore, any ship that doesn't comply with Iranian protocols is not a ceasefire violation, it is ceasefire management. Ebrahim Azizi, chairman of Iran's parliamentary National Security Commission, wrote on social media, "The Strait of Hormuz is governed by Iran." He said the drone attack on the ship was not a breach, it was enforcement of Iranian sovereign rights. The United States said, "Iran signed a ceasefire agreement. We have honored it." J.D. Vance posted, "If they have disagreements about how the MOU is being applied, they can pick up the phone. But violence will be met with violence. Two parties to the same agreement, both claiming they're honoring it, both bombing each other. This is not a paradox, this is a negotiating strategy.
Here's my analysis, and this is the core argument I want you to walk away with. The Islama Memorandum was never designed to end the conflict. It was designed to create a 60-day pressure cooker inside which the real negotiation about Iran's nuclear future, about sanctions, about regional power can be forced to a conclusion under conditions that maximally favor the United States. Think about how this looks from Washington. The Strait of Hormuz being partially open is better than fully closed, but a fully open strait that Iran manages and controls gives Iran too much leverage in the final deal. So, the US needs to keep the pressure on, strike Iranian installations, maintain military presence, signal that restraint is conditional, while also claiming to honor the ceasefire. Every American strike during this period is not a failure of the deal. It is a reminder to Iran that the deal is revocable. It is Trump saying, as he literally said himself, "If I don't like the agreement, the United States will go right back to dropping bombs." And from Tehran's perspective, controlling the Strait of Hormuz is the only significant piece of leverage Iran has left. Every Iranian drone that hits a ship is not a reckless escalation. It is Iran enforcing its interpretation of 0.5. It is Iran reminding the world and the negotiators in Switzerland that without Iranian cooperation, the strait stays dangerous. And a dangerous strait means oil prices spike. And oil price spikes mean economic pain for everyone at the table. Both sides are using the ceasefire as a battlefield for the next deal. The US and Iranian militaries have established a coordination center in Doha to manage disputes. The Gulf Cooperation Council has released a statement saying any final deal must include limiting Iran's missile capabilities. Israel-Lebanon have signed a framework. Talks about the actual final deal, the permanent agreement, are proceeding, however, unevenly. But the violence continues, and it will likely continue until one of two things happens. Either one side blinks and makes a concessions the other demands in the final deal, or the 60-day ceasefire clock runs out and we're back to full war.
There are three things I want you to watch in the coming days and weeks. First, watch the rial. The Iranian currency briefly strengthened after the Osama bin Laden memorandum was signed, then resumed its collapse. As of today, the US dollar trades at about 1.68 million Iranian rials on the open market. For context, that's up from about 1.53 million rials right after the deal was announced, but the rial had fallen to a record low of about 1.9 million per dollar in May. The direction of the rial tells you how Iranians inside the country are reading the prospects for a real deal. If it keeps falling, they don't believe it. Second, watch the strait. Is commercial shipping actually flowing? The UN maritime agency has begun moving stranded vessels out via an alternative Omani coastal route, but halted operations after the latest attacks and said they won't resume without guarantees of safety until large-scale commercial shipping moves freely through the strait, not via workarounds, not via transponder off sneaking along the Omani coast, the core economic pressure hasn't been resolved. Third, watch the nuclear question. The Al-Asbat memorandum commits Iran to down-blending its highly enriched uranium, but a preliminary US Defense Intelligence Agency report, which the Trump administration called political and tried to discredit, assessed that Iran moved much of its enriched uranium stockpile asterisk before asterisk the US strikes, and that the strikes only set back Iran's nuclear capability by months. CIA Director John Ratcliffe then said new intelligence showed the strikes caused damage that would take years to rebuild. These are contradictory assessments from the US government's own agencies. We do not know how much nuclear capability Iran has preserved. That uncertainty is going to define the final negotiation.
I've spent years studying how great power conflict evolves in the modern era. And what strikes me most about this moment is how it mirrors historical patterns that should make everyone uncomfortable. In 1953, the United States and Britain orchestrated the overthrow of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh because he nationalized Iranian oil and threatened Western control of the Strait. The coup installed a Shah who ruled with brutal force until the 1979 Revolution. That revolution gave us the Islamic Republic. And the Islamic Republic over 47 years has been essential antagonist in almost every major Middle East crisis since. Every time the United States has tried to resolve the Iran problem through force, it has created a new and more complicated Iran problem a generation later. I am not saying the strikes were wrong. I am not saying Iran's behavior is defensible. I am saying that a 14-point memorandum of understanding negotiated under military duress with a 60-day clock with the nuclear question left unresolved with Iran's new supreme leader Motamedi endorsing it despite reservations with drones still flying and missiles still striking and tankers still burning, this is not a peace deal. This is a pause. And what happens after the pause depends on decisions being made right now in Doha, in Geneva, in Tehran, and Washington that will shape the Middle East for the next generation. The question is not whether the ceasefire holds today. The question is whether both sides can find within 60 days enough common ground on the nuclear issue, on sanctions relief, on the $300 reconstruction fund, on Iran's regional role, on missile programs, enough common ground to make a real deal that both governments can sell to their domestic audiences. In Washington, Trump needs a deal that looks like victory. He needs to be able to say, "Iran gave up its nukes. Iran opened the strait. Iran's proxies are contained. Done." In Tehran, the new leadership needs a deal that doesn't look like capitulation. They need to say, "The strait is under Iranian management. Sanctions are lifted. The economy can recover. We preserve the Islamic Republic. These are not impossible to reconcile, but they require both sides to believe the alternative is worse. And right now, with drones flying and bombs dropping and tankers burning, neither side has fully made that cal-
What changed after the ceasefire? Everything. And nothing. The war changed shape. The weapons changed. The front shifted. The legal framework shifted. But the fundamental contest between American power and Iranian leverage, between the desire for regional dominance and the imperative of economic survival, that contest is still running louder than ever underneath the paper of the Islamabad memorandum. What comes next is not determined. That's the honest answer. We are inside a 60-day window in which history is being made in real time. The decisions of the next few weeks will echo for decades. I'll be watching, and I'll be right here explaining what I see. If this gave you a clear picture of what's actually happening in the Middle East, share it with someone who's trying to make sense of the headlines. Leave a comment with what you think the US and Iran will actually agree to or not in the final deal. I write everything. And if you want to go deeper on the history behind all of this, the 1953 coup, the nuclear negotiations, the Strait of Hormuz as a geopolitical weapon, I've linked my earlier work below. Stay curious, stay rigorous, and I'll see you next time.