Middle East Roundtable: Memorandum of Misunderstanding.

Hello and welcome back to the Middle East Roundtable at Fronts.co. This is Evan Maloney. I am here with Wilfred Miner, Africa correspondent for Fronts.co.

And Kyle Moran, staff right here at Warfronts. Gentlemen, it has been one hell of a week. As we resolve this conflict, move toward resolution, move toward a memorandum of understanding that is, to put it mildly, a bit catastrophic for the United States.

We have some really stunning developments in the U.S.-Israel relationship, some really stunning developments in Iran's future and its prognosis for both control over the Strait of Hormuz and its longer-term regime survivability. So let's get right into it. And Wilfred, if you could catch us up on what's been happening and what we need to know.

So like Evan just said, it has been one of the most insane weeks. We went from, a deal is maybe happening, a deal is not happening, to we actually have a deal. We actually have something on the table that both sides have agreed upon.

And a signing ceremony is actually going to happen, I believe, on Friday, this Friday in Switzerland. That, in and of itself, the single fact that we have a signing ceremony is more confirmation than anything else that we have a deal. So this was on the 15th of June, I believe this was on Monday or Sunday, depending on your time zone.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shabazz Sharif announced on Twitter that, Following intensive talks, we are pleased to announce that the peace deal between the U.S. and the Islamic Republic of Iran has been reached. Both sides have declared the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon.

The official signing ceremony will be on Friday, 19th June, in Switzerland.

So, yeah, Pakistani Prime Minister Sharif announces it. Trump announces it a few minutes afterwards. And, you know, everyone seems to be in agreement.

The one party that has so far, well, at the time, you know, this announcement was being made, that seemed to be in shock, seemed to be angry that, you know, a peace deal was being reached, was Israel. And we will get into that in a little bit. But so far, we do have the terms of the agreement.

They've been leaked by Bloomberg News.

The most important ones are, you know, that the Islamic Republic of Iran and the U.S., together with their allies in the current war, declare that upon the memorandum being signed, it will lead to an immediate and permanent end to the war on all fronts, including in Lebanon, that Iran and the U.S. undertake to respect each other's sovereignty, that Iran and

The U.S. will negotiate a final agreement within a maximum period of 60 days that can be extended by mutual consent on the nuclear issue, that upon signing the memorandum, Iran... will immediately take steps to ensure that the movement of merchant ships from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman, basically through the Strait of Hormuz, is resumed within 30

Days to pre-war volumes, taking into account the need for the removal of technical obstacles and the neutralization of mines by Iran.

Yes, so there's a lot of terms, there's 14 terms, and I feel like if I go through every single one of them, I'll keep you guys here, but I think the main one we should be focused on is the question of sanctions, right?

So the term itself says, the U.S. commits to ending on a schedule to be agreed upon as part of the final agreement, all types of sanctions currently facing the Islamic Republic, including resolutions of the U.N. Security Council and the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and all unilateral U.S. sanctions, both primary and

Secondary, and the Islamic Republic of Iran and the U.S. agree that pending a final agreement, they will maintain the status quo, Iran will maintain the status quo on its nuclear program, and the U.S. will not impose new sanctions on Iran or strengthen its force in the region.

So basically, this is, and we will go into the agreement point by point, I just wanted to give our listeners a very brief highlight of what is in the agreement itself. This is an agreement that on its face broadly, very broadly seems to favor Iran.

And as we get into it, the reactions will explain why. It seems like this war did not go in the U.S.'s favor. Yeah, well said, Wilfred.

So overall, I think the premise of this war has become clear, that Donald Trump, coming off of the high of the Venezuela operation, basically thought that he could waltz into Iran, drop bombs for a few weeks, it would take longer than Venezuela, certainly.

But, you know, it would be a similar dynamic, where ultimately, they would find somebody to work with inside the regime, and find a new partner, once old man Khomeini was out of out of office, shall we say. And suffice it to say, that simply was not the case.

This was never going to be the case. Iran is fundamentally not Venezuela. So by the time you get a few weeks into this, I think the U.S. was starting to realize that this is not going the way they wanted, and that the bombing campaign was not working.

So they attempted to launch Operation Economic Fury. I personally think Economic Fury had more of an impact than this Venezuela-style thing would have. But ultimately, by not seeing that part through, they're essentially ceding to Iran, okay, we need a deal.

We need a deal fast. Because either variously the midterms are coming up, or gas is too expensive, or gas is too expensive with the midterms coming up. We need a deal fast.

The latter being the ultimate case, I think. So by the time you reach this point in June, this is essentially a situation where Iran was holding the cards that the U.S. simply needed Hormuz open again and didn't have a way to do so without essentially giving a JCPOA 2.0. I want to raise a point that I've been thinking about.

Ever since the war started, I feel like fundamentally the Trump administration and the people advising them don't understand Iran as a country, as a system. The simple fact that they were looking for a Delcey Rodriguez-like figure, Delcey Rodriguez is the Venezuelan current president who took over after Maduro.

The fact that they were looking for someone like her in Iran tells me they don't necessarily understand what makes Iran much different from Venezuela.

Because while, you know, Venezuela, there is a very deeply rooted ideology, which, you know, some can compare to what is in Iran. In Venezuela, it's not a religious thing. It's not something that is ingrained into people, you know, from the moment they are born.

And it's not a revolution that just deposed a monarch and imposed an Islamic republic. It's such a fundamentally different kind of ideology. So Trump and, you know, those around him thinking that Ahmadinejad could be a good replacement, you know, could be a good figure to work with is just a fundamental misunderstanding.

And if the most powerful man in the world is launching a war where he has very limited understanding and those advising him aren't correcting him, it's just disappointing to see. And just one final thing. Kyle, you mentioned the deadlines that were coming up here with the midterms and stuff like that.

I'd argue that Trump's birthday coming up a little while back was also a big deadline that Trump had imposed on himself, because what would have been a better birthday gift than, you know, to say, I made a peace deal with Iran that's better than the JCPOA. Now, he can't even say that because this deal is in many aspects worse.

Yeah, I think especially when it comes to Venezuela, Venezuela was such a hollowed out project, to be honest.

It has some believers, but the forces in power were structured in a far more personalist way. So it was Maduro. You answer to Maduro.

You're fighting for Maduro on all of this stuff. And of course, they put it under the guise of a nationalist project. So you're fighting for the Bolivian Republic, blah, blah, blah.

But this is not something that actually had widespread buy-in, shall we say, even throughout with his own vice president there.

So ultimately... it was far easier to get a figure willing to work with the country with washington i should say than iran actually was iran is far less of a personalist project and while the original homini still maintains a larger than life presence in iranian nationalist sentiment he nevertheless wasn't the all end all of the islamic revolutions and

Certainly old man khameini is also not the central defining figure of the country in the way that maduro was in which if you take out khameini the country just falls apart they have specifically built themselves to not be like that so then in that case let's talk about this mou right so we're going to be going off of as wilford said the bloomberg copy that

Has been leaked i'm sure that will be in dispute from the u.s administration if it's not already by the time this episode is out but we're going to go off that for now because it's what we have looking at this without getting into any of the points at all thinking instead of about iran's leadership about israel's leadership about the u.s leadership in

Reaction to this as of the time of recording we are still about 48 hours from signing we're going to get into some of the ceasefire violations we've seen from israel some of the allegations that iran has continued drone strikes in the strait of homos but before we even get into that do we believe that we make it to friday and deciding with this memorandum as

Written or is that even too big of an ask at this point i think we can make it to friday with the memorandum as written because the trump administration realizes that any attempts to alter it will just take them back to the negotiating table make them look in the in the eyes of the american audience because you know they've already been touting this as you

Know the great peace deal a great diplomatic breakthrough it will make them look a lot more unreliable than they already are and you know the reaction to this deal is already negative so for the administration to tell you know the public that they have to go back and negotiate again when you know the peace deal is already unpopular i don't think they can

Stomach that well so the nuclear part of the deal is extended so that's going to be part of the 60 day quote unquote technical talks so we ultimately don't exactly know what's going to be in this as to whether the first round of the deal the non-nuclear part is going to be signed or not it's there is a serious possibility it's not i would say right now it's

More likely that it is but ultimately al-arabiyah right now is reporting that hezbollah believes iran will not sign the final nuclear deal if israel stays in lebanon and this brings in the whole lebanon front front and form front and center to the discussion today because this has been the crux of the matter for the last several weeks and continues to be at

The heart of any discussion as to what to do with the region moving forward.

Israel fundamentally believes, especially the current government facing elections there themselves upcoming in either September or October, that they have to push a very hard line in Lebanon or else they'll look weak to their opposition.

But ultimately, the U.S. has the complete opposite approach here, where it's saying that if Israel continues operating in such an aggressive way in Lebanon, it's undermining not just Lebanese interests, but American interests in the region.

So we're starting to get into this very, very unusual situation where it's the Islamic Republic and the United States, admittedly through very different methods, both pushing Israel to limit its operations in Lebanon. Which is certainly not something I had on my bingo card going into 2026.

So let's start through this memorandum. And I'm just going to begin reading off the points as we have them by Bloomberg. Please, both of you, jump in and stop me when there's something that you want to talk about, because I have a feeling we're going to run into many, many snags as we're doing this.

So starting on point one. And just to note here, Iran, I suppose, did also get back to Bloomberg via the state media agency Tasman, saying that there are some discrepancies here. Bloomberg notes that might be a translation issue.

But starting on point one.

The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States, together with their allies in the current war, declare upon the signing of this memorandum of understanding an immediate and permanent end to the war on all fronts, including Lebanon, and undertake that from now they will not launch any hostile action against each other and will refrain from the threat or

Use of force against each other.

The final agreement will confirm the provisions of the article and the remaining articles.

Okay, so I want to jump in there. For me, this is the single most important clause in the MOU, because Israel is so unlikely to agree to end hostilities in Lebanon. I know we've already covered this a bit, but I don't think this, as written, can survive Israel's own needs, wants, basically justifications.

Israel has its own calculus. It's playing out in Lebanon, and I don't think this will hold. We already saw figures within the Israeli government saying that the deal does not apply to Israel.

So, yeah, this one will be tricky to implement. It certainly will, because the dynamic here has not been that this is a trilateral negotiation at all.

It's been the Islamic Republic with the United States, and then dragged into these discussions, kicking and screaming, has been Israel, who has had ostensibly very little interest to no interest in being party to them. in the first place and to your point there wilfred yes you are right that i believe it was defense minister israel cats made an announcement

That this deal means absolutely nothing to israel here so they will not be joining in at all on it and it's difficult for me to see them even ceasing operations in lebanon all across the board let alone a full israeli withdrawal he'd essentially be redoing what happened back in the early 2000s when israel pulled out after their failed occupation so this

Would be quite a setback for israel if that happens to be the case you know there's something that has occurred to me the way israel okay so the negotiations are happening between the u.s and iran israel is a junior partner to the u.s you know who else is a junior partner in this and you know i might get some flack for this observation but hezbollah is also

A junior partner so in some ways the way hezbollah and you know israel are acting is the exact same when hezbollah says you know a deal doesn't apply to them that's the same thing israel is doing right now saying a deal doesn't apply to them so it might be a comparison that draws me some flack but israel and hezbollah are acting in very similar ways i will

Just say and this is remarkable to have these words come out of my mouth hezbollah is a less independent partner to be honest if iran tells them to jump ultimately hezbollah will say how high in a way that israel is simply not doing with the united states and on hezbollah as well we have some reporting from reuters from monday that quoting a hezbollah

Official there the organization has purportedly not launched any attacks carried out any operations since the u.s iran deal was announced so it does seem as if the onus is more on israel here let me put this question to both of you and then i want to set something up is there any way where if israel were to say launch strikes on iran and iran were to engage

In kinetic reprisal against israel or against the gulf states is there any way in either of your estimation that the u.s does not then come to israel's aid i don't ever see a situation where the u.s fails to come to israel's aid simply because it will set a really really bad precedent your closest ally in the middle east is coming under attack and you're not

Defending them what does that tell every other country that allied to the u.s so i don't see a situation where that happens i somewhat controversially will say that i see a situation where something could happen on that front so to be honest the israel is an extremely capable country in terms of its defenses so while They very much enjoy having an

International force backing them, as you can see throughout various iterations of tip-for-tat exchanges with Iran back in 2024 and 2025.

Even Jordan was shooting down Iranian missiles and drones inbound to Israel. But ultimately, they don't need it, at least not to the extent that they've enjoyed it so far. And last week, in the back and forth, the U.S. already did this.

We did not participate in a shoot-down of incoming Iranian fire to Israel. And this is due exclusively to the Lebanon front. The American approach here was saying, this is simply something, look, if you're starting this shit, you've got to deal with the mess.

Israel is not this, like, helpless country. It can manage itself. And they did.

But it was a very clear message to the Netanyahu premiership and government writ large that if you guys are getting yourself in this trouble, we're not always going to be there to rescue you over it. Now, if Israel was facing anything on the scale of not even just existential risk, but even widespread damage, the U.S. would step in.

But if we're talking about more limited tip-for-tat exchanges, which is what I am almost certain we are, because I don't think Iran is eager to get into another one-on-one with Israel for the reasons Evan mentioned I think that would escalate to the U.S. rejoining to begin with.

But beyond that, in terms of the more limited campaigns, I can absolutely see the U.S. telling Israel to go have fun, if you will. Wilfred, the only thing I'll push back there on is the alliances just are not as important to Trump as you may think that they are, I guess, is what I'm saying here.

Because the U.S.'s approach to the Middle East, especially with Israel, has been undergoing serious changes over the last few months.

And ultimately, the whole old-school logic of we have a long-standing relationship with country X, so therefore we must stand with them no matter what, because it'll send a bad message to our allies or our enemies, rather, if we don't. I don't think Donald Trump has ever believed that.

And I think that just as he has maybe been willing to flex a muscle of independence with Europe on, he's now turning to Israel on that.

I will agree, and simply because Trump's approach to foreign policy, to relationships in general, is so transactional that the old paradigms, the old ways of thinking don't really apply to him.

And that makes analyzing him and his decisions such a mess, such a complicated thing that I hate him. to deal with but you know he is he is the president he is who he is and that's what we have to deal with let's move on to point two here which for me strikes me as one of the less controversial items here 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 international internal affairs any of their any qualms yes you guys remember at the start of this year when the iranian people were out on the streets protesting trump really you know pushed pushed the islamic republic to treat the protest

As well not you know conduct executions so this tells me iran has managed to get trump to back off of that you know it's not like it was going to be hard he was probably using the protesters as a cudgel to ram the to use to run the iranian government but still this is a really big victory for iran yeah on that i agree there's been some activity on the

Iranian side preparing people who were participants in the protest for what seemed to be larger scale executions shaping up in addition to a number of other trials that seem to be coming down the pipeline under the current circumstances i think we should expect to see a wave of crackdowns across iran especially now that this new alternative power structure

In iran which seems to be dependent on the revolutionary guard corps is going to remain intact that's essentially what this deal does right it enshrines irgc leadership for the long term and i don't necessarily believe that the u.s is going to hold itself to a really high standard on its implementation of point number two right i think there are much larger

Conversations to have about how seriously iran or the u.s are going to take this whole thing when it doesn't suit them to be serious about it but even still it seems as if this would lay the groundwork for large-scale iranian reprisals against system citizens in the near future one thing we keep talking about is how repressive we expect the irgc to become

You know once the war is over because they've survived but i don't think people are prepared for just the extent of the repression operation that's going to happen i think this is the last time the protest that happened in january that is the last time we're going to see a protest of that scale in iran i agree i think this is going to be pretty challenging

For the iranian people moving forward which is why when donald trump threatens or makes thinly veiled threats towards various leaders or governments or whatnot that's one thing because it's it's his own unique approach to these diplomatic problems but when he's explicitly telling the iranian protesters yes if you go out we will back you.

We as the United States will back you.

We will support you in trying to overthrow this regime. And then you don't deliver. That puts the country in a fundamentally weaker position.

And it fundamentally fails to deliver for both the Iranian people and the American people alike in a way that is difficult to overstate. And I do just want to note here, not only a failure to make good on that promise to protect Iranian protesters, but quite literally the opposite.

To say that we're going to start this whole military intervention to try and protect them, try to save them after what had been reported to be, I mean, catastrophic massacres of tens of thousands of people.

And then to go with military force and ignore them completely, fail to provide any measure of meaningful support, make the streets of Iran inhospitable to them. I don't know how the U.S. could possibly gain any level of credibility back with the Iranian people at this point after the way that this war has been run. I do just want to ask on that front.

So sometimes I hear this stuff and I do wonder though, like, what does that mean in terms of actual military action that would have helped deliver for the Iranian people more? If you don't mind me asking. Absolutely.

I think there are a few things, right? So item number one, perhaps bomb neighborhoods and the streets of ordinary Iranian cities a bit less and focus more attention on military targets elsewhere. I think that's number one, right?

Number two, to the extent that you are going to hit targets within the cities, there could have been much, much more effort to target the besieged paramilitaries than there was, and there were limited strikes against them, right? This is not to say that the U.S. and Israel did nothing in this area, right?

But it was far short of what a comprehensive round of strikes against explicitly the besieged would have been, right?

Number three, I think the bombing of the girls school very early in the war was just one of those unforced errors that sent so much propaganda value to the Iranian regime in a way that was unifying. And then item number four, the U.S. I mean, I'm an American. Kyle, you're an American.

We live in a country with decades upon decades upon decades of unconventional warfare and foreign influence campaigns, whether it's in Latin America, whether it's in South Asia, wherever it is, right? So many different places. This is not a playbook that hasn't been run before, right?

To supply weapons to local resistance groups to, I mean, the U.S. gained such control over the Iranian skies. Could we not have flown a couple of C-17s through and just airdropped a couple of weapons caches? That to me seems well within what the U.S. could have done if it had been a bit more focused versus instead, right, what we actually ended up doing.

Which was to call on the Iranian people to participate in large-scale revolutions immediately before bombing the cities in which those revolutions were supposed to take place. Right.

So that is the stuff that I'm on board with in terms of the U.S. not delivering on action. things that are especially helpful what i'm asking is what actually could be and this is where it's like a bunch of question marks i mean i'm not sure that there really is a solid answer here because in a country like iran i'm not sure this is realistic but ultimately

A large-scale civilian overthrow of the government yeah i mean like how did if one wants to get to that point how does one even get there is my right so i don't i mean personally right this is going to be a more controversial take and i understand that i do not believe that there is necessarily a through a direct through line to those sorts of actions and a

Civilian overthrow of the iranian regime nor do i yeah i don't either but hold on let me complete here right nor do i believe that it's necessarily a prudent decision right well one i think if you're going to engage in this war which is a separate conversation but let's assume that decision has been made if you're going to engage in this war right you're

Going to take on a large-scale military campaign against iran it's not going to be so simple as taking any single strategic line and overthrowing the iranian regime you don't do it because there's this immediate through line between citizen uprising to downfall of tehran you do it to destabilize you do it to create chaos you do it to interrupt the iranian

Decision making infrastructure logistical complex so on so forth right you do it to divide and destabilize the regime as we could have done bringing in other examples right with limited kurdish or balik offensives which certainly wouldn't have resulted in this like giant march on iran or on tehran right neither of those insurgencies had anywhere near the

Level of capability to do that right but how many problems are you going to create for the iranian regime and how many people who are part of anti-regime elements are you going to recruit to your cause credibly while also doing what you can to keep them safe and there was no effort to do that here in what was ostensibly and was conducted as a regime change

War i am enormously glad that we did not participate in anything to act or any sustained effort to fully mobilize either kurdish or balik separatism because if we're talking about losing the support of the iranian people balkanizing the country of iran would have been one of the most dangerous situations that i can imagine in terms of long-term stability for

The country so in term the specifically the israeli affection towards using kurds to march on tehran which was at one point their explicit plan believe it or not what is something that i am enormously glad that the united states never fully got on board with and i will say that i that could have been so much worse to me in terms of follow-up from this well

Here's the thing right i absolutely agree with you i am one hundred percent in lockstep on that point.

I also don't think that this war should have taken place at all, quite frankly. This was a poorly thought out, ill-conceived attempt to achieve objectives that were not within reach based on a completely bungled understanding of the Iranian regime, right? There are so many, so many layered issues here.

At the same time, and by the way, speaking of the Balkanization of Iran issue, if you want to go back on war fronts, I published a video on that, right? Wrote the whole thing. Simon and I went and put it up.

That's on record explaining just how bad this would be and how bad it could have become. That being said, there is a difference between the choices that you make when you have the option still to not engage in a war like this and the choices that you make once you're in here. And you're in far too deep, I think, by that point in the war, to do anything less.

This war, I will say just on a personal stance, this should not have happened. If it's going to happen, then you use the levers at your disposal to achieve some kind of victory, which as we go through this MOU, it seems clear to all of us that is not what's happened. Yeah.

And as the resident Iran hawk, if that can fly here, I will say that looking back on it, if this is the outcome that finally settles, this war never should have been launched in the first place. And even if this is not the final result, this war still should not have been launched in the first place.

Because the lack of strategic thinking on how to get from point A to point B was just fundamentally flawed in a way that's difficult to overstate, specifically because of the Venezuela stuff that we've already touched on.

I always go back to this idea that Mossad had presented Trump and Netanyahu with this intelligence saying, you know, once they decapitated the leaders of the revolution, guys like Khamenei and his inner circle, the people of Iran will rise up and stage a revolution against them, against whatever remained.

So it's just such a fundamental misunderstanding of the Iranian regime. That has been the underlying story of this entire war.

That's Trump. That's his administration. They don't understand the Iranian regime.

That's why even ideas like arming the Kurds and the risks that caused. Again, this is a war that should never have begun at any point. Just by the way, the US ultimately did not go for that Kurd arming thing, which is one of the few, that's one of the few saving graces of the Trump administration's approach right.

So credit where credit's due to them on that one. That isn't even something we can credit to the Trump administration. Turkey is claiming that they're the reason why the Kurds weren't harmed.

Yeah, they doubtlessly played a role, but all together, Trump has had a very patchy relationship with the Kurds to begin with. I don't think he trusts them because ultimately beyond their own system, specifically ethno-nationalist project, they're not interested in the invested in the Iranian project writ large.

And I think that's kind of shown through throughout this war, given the divergence between Israel and the U.S. on this issue.

So I do want to move on to point three. I get out of 14 of this MOU, so we might be here for a little while. But point three, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States undertake to negotiate and reach a final agreement within a maximum period of 60 days, extendable by mutual consent.

I will just say to preface this, that to me, given everything else we're going to describe, sounds like a bit of a punt. What do you guys think?

Every time I see the words extendable by 60 days mutual consent, I know they're going to do it because as long as they can keep kicking the can down the road saying negotiations are happening, negotiations are happening, this story can get out of the news cycle and it does less and less damage to Trump's brand, to his image as this master dealmaker.

Yeah, I agree. I think in general, the Islamic Republic is going to be at its maximum in terms of diplomatic influence throughout negotiations. Once the ink is signed on not just this Friday's upcoming agreement, but the 60 day part of the agreement, there's going to be a waning degree of influence.

So if you're at the Islamic Republic, you should really be prioritizing, keeping this thing going as long as possible, because right now Trump needs you in a way that he really won't after the ink is dry on this thing. Yeah, completely agreed. And to move on to point four now.

So this is one of the more interesting ones, I think, just based on the US action. It'll be interesting to see whether US assets in the region start moving because of this.

Quote, immediately upon the signing of this memorandum of understanding, the United States lift the naval blockade and prevent any interference or obstruction against the Islamic Republic of Iran and restore traffic within a maximum of 30 days to its full capacity.

The traffic of ships shall be proportional to the pre-war volume of traffic on the part of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The United States also undertakes to withdraw its forces from the surrounding areas within 30 days after the final agreement.

This is inherently extremely vague, especially in the last part there in terms of the United States agreeing to withdrawing its forces.

So in the lead up to the strikes that began on February 28th, the US was obviously building up its forces in the Middle East. It is very reasonable to assume that those will now be drawn down from their very heightened levels before this kicked off.

However, if we're talking about removing forces from bases throughout the region, keep in mind, Qatar is just across the strait there, very, very close.

So if we're talking about a withdrawal of US forces from bases that were well longstanding projects, then I mean, that could be a very, very strategic. back for the united states through no reason other than that they launched this war to begin with yeah and i do just want to chime in here as well this is something that i've noted in prior conversations that

We've had here in the middle east roundtable the immense costs involved in just moving all of this american hardware beyond what was already at al-a-dade and some of these other air bases moving all of this additional air power munitions naval assets to the middle east has been an incredibly costly affair for the united states the estimates that i've seen

The pentagon put out about the cost of this war quite frankly do not match up with the known expenditures involved with moving this amount of kit toward a certain location now there are i think arguments that you know why would they include those in tabulations of what's what's been extended expended during the conflict right why would you include the

Buildup and that ensure there's some accounting vagueness that i think is to be expected on the pentagon's part but the point that i want to make is that a withdrawal here right moving all of these assets back out of the middle east is going to be just as expensive and to bring them back in later is an added cost of billions upon billions of dollars on top

Of that personally i don't anticipate that if these forces leave that there's any real chance that they come back so my question to both of you would be how much of a point of tension does that create right where if we see these forces starting to leave which i don't believe that we will in the near term right if we see those forces start to leave does that

Open up some more room for iran to start pushing into the gray spaces of this deal and if the us does move those forces right what does that say about the us's continual engagement or lack thereof in the region especially as it pertains to israel and the gulf states but there's always a question i'm thinking about when it comes to stuff like this and trump

And expenditure does he really care about just how much it costs or does he care about you know it making him look weak because you know those are two different costs you know there's the financial cost and then there's the reputational hit to trump i don't think that's something he is willing to take he isn't willing to you know allow it to be seen that as

Soon as he leaves iran is your back to its usual shits threatening walking in the gray spaces that will fundamentally make him look weak which is why i think regardless of how expensive it is to bring the you know the assets back into the persian gulf he will still do it he will still go for it to me it's just hard to see exactly where this goes just given

How new this is this is extremely ambiguous language so i'm going to hold out on making any predictions on where it will go from here other than just saying i will be following this long term for sure so moving on to point number five upon signing this memorandum of understanding the islamic republic of iran will immediately take steps to ensure that the

Movement you merchant ships from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman and vice versa is resumed within 30 days to the pre-war volume, taking into account the need for removal of technical obstacles and the neutralization of mines by Iran.

Part of this is going to come down to the tolling situation here, which again, this point is something that is not in any of the points you'll be reading off today, Evan, which in and of itself is telling to me, because Donald Trump is presenting this explicitly as a toll-free agreement. There will be freedom of navigation.

Gulf countries have also been presenting it. Saudi Arabia today has been discussing this as the importance of establishing and maintaining the freedom of navigation throughout the Sea of Hormuz and international shipping writ large.

Overall, the fact that this does not explicitly ban Iran from charging what it may call tolls or fees or donations, if you will, in order to secure insurance from the Islamic Republic itself, which in and of itself is inherently just so crazy of a way to frame this, because essentially what they're saying is you need insurance to get through in order to be

Guaranteed that we ourselves will not shoot at you.

So, I mean, that's really quite a crazy development there. But overall, if that does go through, that is, I would say that could be the single biggest strategic setback of the United States here. Now, again, that main, that is ambiguous language in terms of back and forth on this.

So, we don't have definitive results in terms of what's going to go forward with that. But of that point there, that's going to be my number one that I'm keeping track on. I think the ambiguity is the point, because a lot of this has been kicked down the road.

So, whether Iran collects tolls within the next 60 days, I don't think they'll do that. But what comes after is what I want to observe. Yeah, I agree.

There's been a precedent established during this war that Iran now has the ability, the demonstrated ability, right, to implement tolls, or if it wants to, close down the Strait of Hormuz.

But there's also been a second precedent set here, which is that when that happened, right, the U.S. and the rest of the world deemed it to not be valuable enough to expend the immense military firepower and put the assets at risk that would have been necessary to reopen the Strait. We never saw a true Strait reopening operation happen.

And the fact that has now been set as precedent for Iran, I think, leaves a much more permissive structure for Iran to take action at any point in the future against the Strait if it wants to, knowing that as long as it stays within certain bounds and the U.S. approach to international the attacks on shipping routes remains as it's been recently demonstrated

It doesn't seem like that's something that iran would expect to face penalties for i agree the lack of actual dedication to putting into force at least some u.s backed project freedom if you will that was what they had originally floated as the campaign to do precisely that to bypass iranian tolls but never really got off the ground there is a swing and a

Miss specifically because we started to do it we halfway did it and then we canceled the whole thing without actually committing any resources to it which sends the worst message i would have rather we not launch it in the first place if that's going to be the case but long term the only the only thing i disagree with evan they're on i'll push back slightly

On the strait of hormuz is this war has certainly shown just how much power iran has over it but i one point i've i've been making previously this is not inherently to me at least new iran has threatened to do this in just about every potential conflict it's been in the difference here being that the 2025 campaign was the first like big campaign that it's

Been through since the iran iraq war so ultimately it hasn't really been tested on this but that's different than whether they were willing to do it previously i think they always were and i think that it's just given the geography here this is just such a low bar for the islamic republic especially given its drone program it takes just a matter of a few

Irgc dudes setting up shop on the beaches of the street of hormuz with a cheap shot head drone to shut down a major lane of international shipping and given just how extensive the geography is here it's quite difficult to prevent that from happening so i think that in any conflict with the islamic republic this is just going to have to be baked into the

Equation where hormuz is going to be shut down for a considerable period of time i want yeah i agree that's that's the critical point here and just to go back because i had a feeling we were going to come up on this topic again today kyle while it is true that the iranians had previously made threats to shut down the straight we've discussed on this podcast

Before how straight transits really have come down to risk insurance right by these maritime shipping insurers risk assessment and risk pricing will never rely on threats when precedent is available to examine never precedent will always come first and the issue here is the prior precedent was yes iran makes vague threats toward the straight then the us and

Whoever else says no you're not really going to try it and then iran has to think to itself okay well do we want to prove that we're actually going to try it and do and experience everything that comes along with that or can we let this one slide and the reaction up until now had been, let's let this lie, this really isn't worth having our entire naval

Infrastructure destroyed just to prove that we're willing to blockade the strait.

This war was not started, was not finished, to give Iran a chance to reverse that calculus. But a collateral impact of this war has been that Iran has gotten the chance to credibly demonstrate its ability to close the strait.

Once that's done, that precedent can't be taken back. And the fact that it didn't exist before, right, and that Iran could be continually called on its bluff, was a major instrument to keeping peace in the region. That's gone now.

Yeah, I think we're saying a similar thing from different standpoints, though. So I definitely agree with the impact that precedent has. And I do think that we are in a slightly different world now than we were before.

The difference here being that I think this is inherently baked into the cake or should be baked into the cake, at least, for any war planner. If you touch Iran, they're going to do this, is essentially my thinking. So if it was 1995, I think they would have done this.

If it was 2020, I think they would have done this.

So in terms of, and I'm not pushing back on your framing here, Evan, I'm pushing back on other stuff I've seen in the media where they're presenting this as though Iran has just recently discovered that there is something off its coast called the Strait of Hormuz, where it's like, wow, we have this thing that we can do here now.

So ultimately, some of that framing, I think, does miss the mark because this has just been part of Iran's deterrent strategy forever at this point.

So ultimately, I wasn't entirely surprised. And the criticisms that the fact that Hormuz was closed down to me was just like, this is just saying water is wet. If you attack Iran in a major campaign, they close Hormuz.

So we are in a different world now, for sure. But ultimately, I think this is just something that others should have seen coming a bit more. Absolutely.

And Wilfred, I see you want to jump in here too. I don't necessarily think Iran would have closed this trade at any other point in time. I think Ayatollah Khomeini was really, really cautious about the idea of a large scale war at any point of this kind of war, the exact kind of war that he died in.

So I just wanted to push back on that. I think he's the main reason why Iran hadn't closed this trade up to this point. It's not that they just discovered that there's this wonderful body of water right across their shores that they can close and it fucks with the global economy.

It's the fact that their leadership has changed so fundamentally, and they have such fundamentally different views from the older Khomeini that the calculus is different. I would just say there that they didn't have a reason to close them. their old men Khamenei, because they weren't attacked in a massive war.

But I will say during the Iran-Iraq war, Hormuz was essentially closed down here.

So it was through different means and in no small part through Iraqi participation that time, but not entirely new. And I can't see any Iranian leader taking on the campaign that Israel and the U.S. unleashed in late February without closing Hormuz, is what I'll say there. On that, we agreed.

They hadn't closed it because they hadn't been attacked, but they hadn't been attacked because Khamenei had been, one, really cautious, and two, Israel hadn't really managed to convince an American administration before Trump to fully attack Iran.

Clinton, Hillary Clinton, when she was Secretary of State, she did an interview, I think it was today or yesterday, saying that she was receiving a lot of pressure from Israel to attack Iran, to convince her administration to attack Iran.

And they were saying things like, you know, our planes are on the tarmac, implying that they will launch a unilateral strike.

And her reaction was always, oh, good luck with that. So it's a combination of factors, but I think that does clear part. And let's keep that threat of straight closure in mind as we move on.

And I'm going to skip past two points now. I'm going to skip past point six and seven reviews of them. I want to go to point eight because it's very closely related, I think.

The Islamic Republic of Iran reiterates that it will never produce nuclear weapons. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States have agreed that the fate of enriched material and the fate of all other mutually agreed nuclear related issues, including Iran's nuclear needs, will be adequately addressed in a final agreement.

The final agreement will confirm the provisions of this article.

What do we think of that? Just kicking the can down the road. I do think that the point here about the nuclear program in itself actually might be one of the things that Iran is willing to play ball with more.

We'll have to see. I'm not going to get too out ahead of myself on this. But ultimately, because of the influence that they were able to have via the Strait of Hormuz, it sort of tones down the urgency to have a nuclear weapon.

Because in the early days of the war, I was saying that this war, if we leave the Islamic Republic in place, having launched this, they will have even more of a reason to go for a nuclear weapon. And I think all three of us were on the same page with that one.

But I might disagree with my former self on this, because at this point, it's almost like seen as so costly for a result that can be achieved for so much less.

At this point, it's demonstrated that Iran can take on whatever the U.S. and Israel can throw at it for a month and still come out the other side with the U.S. having essentially given it a very favorable deal because of what's going on in the Straits.

So ultimately, if Iran plays ball on this and tones down the nuclear program to some extent or the other, this is a massive loss for Israel because Israel's claim about nukes in Iran, that's always been the way that they've sold their Iran hawkish program, if you will. But the problem with Iran is it's never just been nukes.

So Israel is not going to be friends with Iran if they commit to never developing a nuclear program and never expanding a nuclear program. So ultimately, they will be out of options in terms of how to actually sell this thing in the first place.

And so now they're going to have to be faced with the prospect of an internationally recognized, sanctions-free Islamic Republic without any real way of saying, yes, we have to implement more sanctions because of the nuclear program.

Now, Iran might not go that far. I think they would be wise if they did, but ultimately, the hardliners may not like that. So we'll have to see where that goes.

But I think that could be a massive Israeli loss if it goes through. So I have a question for you guys. How seriously did you take the fatwa, the supposed fatwa by the previous Ayatollah Khomeini, against the development of nuclear weapons?

Because what I say next will be very dependent on that. Semi-credibly. Yeah, I've actually taken it more seriously as this war has continued.

I'm taking it more seriously now than I did previously. Previously, I took it very unseriously. I think this is more just a shift in the Islamic Republic's interest, though.

Because right now, what does a nuclear weapon get Iran? And that's the point I was getting to. What a nuclear weapon gets Iran is the confirmation that it will never be attacked again.

So this war has proven that Iran can survive an attack. But better than surviving is not getting attacked at all in the first place. You don't want to just barely scrape by.

Because at the end of the day, even with us saying that this deal is a great victory for Iran, they did barely scrape by. Their army is fucking toast. They don't have a navy anymore.

Their air force, whatever is left of it, is gone. Their missiles have been expended. Even if intelligence agencies had severely undercounted, the missile stockpiles have been severely degraded.

And... And that's something that Iran could have avoided if it did have a nuclear weapon. So Iran, I think at some point they will try and get a nuke just to guarantee that no one tries this ever again.

That's the hardliners rationale there for sure. I do understand that this would be a far more effective deterrence against being struck again. But there is another reading here, similar to what I was saying previously, that it would completely disarm the Israeli campaign internationally to keep Iran as an international pariah.

If Iran decides this war taught both the United States and Israel that going after us is going to be extremely painful and costly to the extent where it might not be worth it or won't be worth it to do so again. So ultimately, I think that if the hardliners have their way, that's certainly the approach that they'll take.

And there is a certain credibility to it, because if Iran had a nuclear weapon, this simply would deter any future attacks by Israel or the United States.

But there is another reading here in that if the United States and Israel have been taught, if you will, by the Islamic Republic, that doing a campaign like this is going to be inherently so costly to be basically too expensive and too costly to wage another one.

Because I don't think there's going to be anything, because I don't think there's going to be anything, because I don't think there's going to be many people signing up to do this a second time around. Then you almost don't need a nuclear weapon to begin with.

If you're looking at it through that lens, pursuing a nuclear weapon is going to be one of the worst things for Iranian international standing, because it will keep Israel's longtime rhetoric afloat that Iran wants a nuke. Iran is a few years away from a nuke.

I saw a video of Benjamin Netanyahu in 1992 saying that Iran is three years away from a nuclear weapon.

So that's something there. But ultimately, this would enable it to stay as a sort of semi-pariah state. If they do not do a nuclear weapon and engage with the more broad international community, that could really pay off for them in ways that their economy has not seen in decades.

So I think ultimately, if they play their cards right and smart on this, they will not pursue a nuke. Yeah, that's an interesting point. I know from my perspective, at least, it does not seem credible to assert that if Iran's primary objective over the past several decades was to build a nuclear weapon, that they would not be closer than they are now.

Right. This kind of graduated stage-by-stage brinksmanship over the Iranian nuclear program has been very diplomatically helpful to them. Yes, it's resulted in sanctions.

It's resulted in whatever else. It's also resulted in continual engagement with the rest of the world at the time when the rest of the world very... much wanted to put Iran to the side permanently.

And I think that there is a really interesting point there, Kyle, that Iran is in a unique spot to not lose its deterrent value via the strait while also disavowing, maybe genuinely, maybe not, right?

But at least openly disavowing its own nuclear program. And I wonder there, as we're getting into these broader divisions opening up between Israel and the US, is there room for Iran to have it both ways here, right?

To really go hard on the disavowal of its nuclear program now, reduce Israel's credibility on the issue as much as it can, and then begin progress toward genuine nuclearization at a time when Israel's warnings about that are no longer taken seriously.

I think that really could happen. And I want to slightly divert here to one figure that I saw the other day, which is staggering here, because Iran, which is infinitely larger than Israel, which is just such a tiny state, Iran's national GDP is approximately $300 billion. Israel's nominal GDP is roughly 720 billion, so more than double here, okay?

That figure in and of itself is so damning of the impact that the nuclear approach has had for the Iranian economy. Iran is a highly literate country. It has widespread education.

It's a very advanced country in terms of all sorts of various different economic and educational standards. So the situation that their economy is in is inherently because of the international pariah status that it's had for decades. Israel fears more than anything else an emboldened, but also unchained, internationally legitimized Islamic Republic.

If Iran commits to, and I want to be a little careful with the words here, I don't want, I'm not saying make the Islamic Republic. Republic great again or anything like that.

But if they adopt a strategy, essentially trying to rebuild the economy by actually prioritizing what matters on economics, which will inherently mean giving up its nuclear weapons ambitions, that would be disastrous for Israeli concerns, shall we say?

I think part of why I seriously consider Iran wanting to make a nuclear bomb in the shortest time frame possible is there's no guarantee that a future American administration won't consider the other weapons, the other weapons that Iran has at its disposal, the missiles, the drones, as a big enough threat against its Gulf allies that it doesn't attack.

That's my main thing. killing this. I just can't see anything, any large-scale kinetic operations against Iran happening by the United States, unless Iran directly starts something.

That's a separate conversation. But in terms of just like proactively or preemptively going in at Iran, I can't see that happening again for a long time after this.

And while we're on this subject, let's note something that's not in this MOU, at least as we have it from Bloomberg, which has anything to do with either the Iranian missile program, the Iranian drone program, or its proxy allies, other than to say that this will also wind down hostilities in Lebanon.

This really doesn't even attempt to address some of the major issues that the U.S. has been focused on with Iran for generations now.

That is something I predicted would happen a couple of weeks ago in a piece on war fronts, because the way the negotiations were structured, it all boils down to the strategic calculus that got us into this war in the first place. The U.S. believed it could execute regime change, bring in a friendly government.

When that failed, the Strait of Hormuz was closed. The main priority shifted from trying to get the regime changed to trying and opening the Strait of Hormuz to keep the prices of oil down. And then the nuclear question is always going to be the main priority.

So on Iran's end, it was a strategic masterstroke to close the Strait of Hormuz, force the conversation to turn in that direction. And you have America, all of America's attention just focused in one direction, that and the nuclear question.

So as long as those continue to be the main sticking points, the weapons programs, the drones, the missiles, and you know, the proxies, they won't really feature in this.

They're not as big a priority for the U.S. as the rest, because even at their strongest, Hezbollah and all the other proxies, the Houthis, none of them can really threaten American interests in any significant way. Even the weapons programs, the drones, the missiles, unless, you know, they're targeting Gulf allies.

And before this, we hadn't, Iran hadn't really attacked any of those Gulf allies directly.

You know, there were indirect actions, yes. But unless those are threatened, America is content to let Iran keep its stories. I have so much to say on this point.

So one of the biggest criticisms of the JCPOA, the original Iran nuclear deal, is that, or had long been, that it was nuclear only. So it did not touch Iran's ballistic missile program. It did not touch their proxy network.

Wilfred, I will just say, I do think the Houthis, in terms of their regional power punch above their weight, because of the Bob Omendeb Strait, they could do this whole thing over again there, which would be just another entire Warfront series, shall we say, let alone an episode, a whole series on that. But thankfully, we haven't seen too, too much of this.

But more broadly, this is a fundamental failure by the Trump administration to deliver on one of his longest criticisms of the original JCPOA.

This is essentially going to be, provided that Iran actually plays ball with the nuclear negotiations over the next 60 days, this is going to be another nuclear-only program.

And so, as you can see, back in 2015, the concern from both Arab Gulf countries, as well as Israel, as well as the United States, was that given the sanctions relief, given the money that was essentially being given to the Islamic Republic to the tune of $150 billion back then, which has now doubled to $300 billion this time, just to give you a scale of the

Catastrophe that this deal might be, this is essentially just going to allow them to pursue whatever they see fit.

So, ultimately, this will almost undoubtedly mean more funding for their proxies, including Hezbollah, as well as, if they're smart about it, doing some serious economic upgrades back at home.

They have a serious water problem, and they have a serious gas problem as well, ironically.

Despite the fact that they produce so much oil, they can't refine much of any of it, which has left them badly dependent on imports from their Arab neighbors, which has been sort of an issue given that they've been shooting at them for a considerable period of time at this point. Long term, we'll have to see how that plays out.

But they have a lot of economic room to run, shall we say, if they want to put this money to good use, that could actually pave the way for a far more streamlined Islamic Republic. And let's turn back to point number six of this deal, which is exactly what you're talking about.

The United States undertakes, together with its regional partners, to create a comprehensive plan agreed upon by both parties for the rehabilitation and economic development of the Islamic Republic of Iran, while ensuring financing of at least $300 billion.

The implementation will be formulated within 60 days. There has been some discussion from Trump specifically that this is not U.S. money, it's going to come from U.S. partners. I'm just going to go out on record here and point out that is a distinction without a difference to the highest degree.

It quite frankly does not matter where this money is coming from, other than the marginal political benefit that Trump can probably get with his own base by saying, you know, this wasn't coming from American taxpayers.

The results for Iran, regardless of where that money is coming from, is, as you said, Kyle, so much more. worse than the JCPOA ever would have been from a U.S. and Israeli standpoint. And it's really just an incredible reversal of one of the core points of the longtime American criticisms of the JCPOA to see this now being put into effect.

Yeah, it's been disastrous to say at least. So overall, I do think that there is some benefit to having this not being U.S. taxpayer dollars going there. I think this is going to take the part or at least partially take the form of international investment.

I've seen various reporting. Again, this is all very breaking news and we don't actually have the finalized text. These are coming off of reports from Al Arabiya as well as Bloomberg, which have leaked the deal essentially.

But we'll see how this all plays out. There is a meme that I'll reference here where it's missiles from one country flying into another country whose anti-missile systems are launching to shoot them down.

And the meme is captioned, the missiles coming in on one side, my taxpayer dollars, and then the interceptors going up to shoot them down saying somehow also my taxpayer dollar.

And if we're flooding the Islamic Republic with $300 billion of cash, that is literally doing the meme of that right there. Evan, you raise a good point about Trump saying the money won't necessarily be from American taxpayers, but it will be from America's partners. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said he didn't know of any such thing.

He basically denied the entire thing. So I think that wherever the money does end up coming from, that's irrelevant.

Because the political cost of giving Iran $300 billion, and as Kyle's meme just beautifully illustrated, one end, the missiles raining down on Iran will be American taxpayer dollars, and on the other end will also be dollars that could most likely end up being American taxpayer dollars.

The political hit from that will be extreme. I don't know if you guys follow the happenings on the Reddit conservative subreddit. I use that as a thermometer to gauge the temperature and the feelings of Trump's base and his conservative supporters.

And just the idea that this deal will give Iran $300 billion, regardless of the source, has played out so badly. So there's no marginal political benefit to it at all. It's just, it's playing really, really badly.

Yeah, I do just want to point out here as well, this is, I want to be very clear, this is entirely speculative on my part. This is looking at some of the broader themes of the second Trump administration, kind of putting them into. context here. The U.S., especially under Trump, has been very willing to play around in financial gray spaces.

We've talked on this podcast before about some of the crypto stuff happening in Washington, kind of the insider trading, but also the multilateral exchanges of finance that have been, shall we say, less than above board. I mean, like we said earlier, Kyle and I are American citizens.

As an American taxpayer, I quite frankly do not trust entirely that American taxpayer dollars are not going to be routed to this in some way other than a transparent above board transfer of funds.

I think the Trump administration's willingness to play in the gray areas might be the only saving grace for them when it comes to this, the $300 billion. But still, I'm still thinking about the political cost of it all. Kyle?

Yeah, I mean, all three of us came of age during the signing of the original JCPOA. So that was sort of when the, shall we say, more hawkish Iran side was so dominant in the Republican Party, where it was just like full-on consensus. You didn't really have the more vocal, less interventionist wing flexing as much muscle as you do now.

But one of the biggest criticisms of the JCPOA was because Iran's not hooked up to the international banking systems and whatnot, they had to physically fly planes full of cash to Iran to get them their money. And this was just, for a decade, has been something that the U.S., in particular, Donald Trump has lambasted them, the Obama administration for doing.

And I don't know how well-connected the Iranian system is now, but we may be in a situation where that might have to happen again.

And so if Donald Trump is flying planes full of cash to Iran, I mean, we have just come full circle here. I think just the optics of planes bringing in billions of dollars to the Iranian regime has been one of the main sticking points for the Democratic Party, one of the main reasons why it's not been as electorally successful as it would like to be.

And if we get to a point where Trump is forced to send planes to Iran full of cash, I think the fortunes will reverse dramatically.

But I do think there's a possibility of him sending the money through countries like the UAE, because Iran is very, very intimately connected with the UAE's banking system. And the UAE has already pledged to unlock billions of dollars for Iran. So that is a possible route he could use just to avoid the negative optics.

Yeah. And there's a lot of evidence. Go ahead, Kyle.

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Go ahead. Go ahead I'll make this quick. Given how sensitive he is on the optics front, I definitely see him trying to avoid it as much as possible.

I agree. And I do want to point out, bringing in the UAE, bringing in Qatar, bringing in some of these other countries, there are lots of ways for the U.S. to, let's say, unlock tens of billions of dollars in funding from those countries by offsetting it in other ways.

The U.S., let's say, invests $20 billion into Saudi Arabia for whatever purposes that Saudi was initially planning to invest in themselves.

Well, now Saudi has an available $20 billion to spend someplace else. So there's a number of different ways that this can get done where ultimately the U.S. is the country footing the bill that is not necessarily a direct transfer of American money to Iran.

And while we're on this point, I know for myself, the thing even more stunning than this transfer of $300 billion was this next point.

The United States commits to ending on a schedule to be agreed on all types of sanctions currently facing the Islamic Republic of Iran, including resolutions of the U.N. Security Council and the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, and all unilateral U.S. sanctions, both primary and secondary.

That, to me, is maybe the most stunning part of this whole agreement. Sorry, go ahead, Wilfred.

Sure. So this was one of the most shocking things for me, because this is a tweet from Javier Blas. Javier is the energies and commodities columnist at Bloomberg.

So at current oil prices, if Iran were to revert to pre-war exports, Tehran will be making $60 to $70 billion an year in crude oil, you know, in crude exports alone.

So with the sanctions lifted and Iran able to sell to more countries, Iran able to do business with more countries, we are looking at an Iran that will be a lot more flush with cash than at any other point we've seen.

So the Trump administration needs to either get something really, really good on the other end for this, or they're just more than the $300 billion, they're just shoving piles of cash to the IRGC.

This point was the least surprising to me, and I know this is going to be rather contrarian here, but I think that this was essentially going to be baked into the cake of round 1.1 of any Iranian demand on reaching any sort of a deal to reopen Hormuz, because the sanctions regime has just decimated the economy, as I was discussing earlier, for decades at

This point.

So any deal that is inherently long-term, as the original JCPOA included as well, it had snapback sanction abilities. We'll have to see exactly what the implementation of this looks like, but there was no way Iran was going to sign on a dotted line without massive sanctions relief to me.

They would put that above almost anything else in terms of U.S. concessions, in my opinion, because it's just so important to get their economy up and running again. Because so much of the constraints going on here have been the impact of the international sanctions regime. On that note, I agree.

I don't think that it's unlikely that Iran would have really dug its heels in until there was some kind of sanctions relief. But it does seem like there's a difference between massive sanctions relief and this. Right.

The U.S. going and I mean, agreeing in the initial terms of a deal to go back on all of the IAEA sanctions, go on everything that the U.N. Security Council has ever negotiated. Right. Which if you look at the Security Council now, those agreements that had been struck at a prior time, you're not getting those again.

Not with Russia where it is, not with Iran, sorry, not with China where it is, not with France and the U.K. where they are. This just, I mean, I agree it was unlikely that sanctions relief to some degree wasn't going to be a part of this. This seems completely beyond anything that I had expected.

Just the idea that all the sanctions could be lifted, that was insane for me. I definitely think that this is a larger scale concession from the U.S. than I had anticipated. I just think that like of all of the concessions the U.S. was going to have to make for this, I had prepared for that to be well within the expectation, shall we say, going into this.

So this is the point we're at. Yeah, I suppose it is. Let's go to, I guess, a less controversial item.

So number nine, Iran and the United States agree that pending a final agreement, they will maintain the status quo. Iran will maintain status quo in its nuclear program. The U.S. will not impose new sanctions on Iran or strengthen its forces in the region.

I do want to note here just one little potential sticking point. So the U.S. will not strengthen its forces in the region. And this week, the U.S. kind of kicked in some defense procurement orders into overdrive.

So it looks like the U.S. is going to try to overproduce air defense interceptors, some of the other things that have been depleted during this war. One thing I'm going to be watching very closely is whether Iran starts looking at cargo flights coming into the Middle East, military cargo flights by the U.S. as a violation of this, right?

Because strengthening its forces, that could mean adding more ships, adding more aircraft.

It could also mean replenishing missile defense stockpiles, right? Could be replenishing munitions that are available to these warplanes and these ships. So that's the thing that really sticks out to me about this note.

But I'm not sure how much there really is to drill down on here beyond that.

Number 10, the U.S. undertakes that immediately after the signing of this MOU, until the date of the lifting of sanctions, the United States Treasury Department will issue waivers for exports of Iranian crude oil, petrochemical products and their derivatives, and all related services, including banking, insurance, transportation, and the...

Like, basically, Iran is coming back into the international economic system.

And that goes back to the tweet I was talking about from Javier, just how much money Iran will be making and the fact that they'll be able to bring it back into Iran through regular, simple channels. They don't need to rely on back channels anymore, which will be a lot, a lot cheaper.

And this is why I think Israel and we have a piece going up by yours truly on Fronts.co.

It should be live by the time this episode publishes. The biggest loser of this war to me is Israel by far, because it may be true that the United States has it certainly is true. The United States has had many setbacks, many serious strategic setbacks here.

But in terms of what a, even if Iran pulls through with the whole non-nuclear stuff, what a internationally economically recognized and integrated or Islamic Republic means for Israel is going to be the antithesis of everything that they launched this war to prevent. The U.S. now, trust me, would be more than happy if regime change had happened in Iran.

But I truly don't think that was ever the stated interest or even not even stated interest, the actual goal of the campaign here, because Donald Trump has refused to even meet with Reza Pahlavi.

He has been very, he was dumping cold water on him. He was very insistent. Again, this gets to the Venezuela thing.

He was not seeking some dramatic regime change, I don't think. He was very much wanting to find somebody who happened to be Ghalibbaf to work with inside of the Islamic Republic. But as it turns out, Ghalibbaf was no Del Cirodugas.

So this is going to be quite a conundrum. But I am curious, actually, what you guys think about, was the U.S. actually out for regime change or not here? I think they were.

And that's the point I was just about to make. I think the U.S. was really committed to this idea that they could replicate what they had done in Venezuela, put in place a regime that is so pliable to the point where the U.S. can say, hey, we want that specific guy arrested. And, you know, Venezuela is like, hey, we'll wrap him up with a bow.

You come pick him up whenever is convenient for you. So they, I seriously think the U.S. believed they could replicate that with Iran. And that's why, you know, a couple of weeks ago, the three of us were laughing on this podcast about Ahmadinejadio being the chosen guy, despite him having decades of death to Israel, death to America in his resume.

So Trump saying right now that regime change was never a big deal, it was never one of his goals, is, for me at least, absolute bullshit. I think Trump was convinced that they could implement a version of Plan Venezuela and they could get a regime that's pliable to their interests. Yeah, I completely agree.

The idea that this was not a regime change operation from the U.S. is, excuse my French, it's a crock of shit.

But if this was not a regime change operation, then I struggled to understand the rationale for decapitating the entire Iranian regime without having first achieved some other military goals that would have been much more in line with the idea that you weren't going to do that. Sorry, go ahead.

No, no, no, I'm sorry, Evan. Just that idea that the very first action in this war was to decapitate the regime. That is what more than anything else confirms to me this was a regime change operation.

They thought by taking out Khomeini, his inner circle, those senior leadership figures within the Islamic Republic, they could get someone very fast to take over the country. I'm sorry, Akati. Please go ahead.

No, no, that's fine. Just in general, when I do this kind of analysis for war fronts, for fronts, whatever it is, my general rule is any and all rhetoric, whether it's from the U.S., whether it's from Iran, whether it's from Israel, no matter who, throw all of that out. Focus exclusively on the actions that they have taken.

What do those actions tell you? And to me, I don't think that there's any way to read those sets of actions as anything other than an attempt to affect regime change, nor do I believe that was an immediately shifted priority. I think weeks and weeks into the U.S. operation, that continued to be the primary objective for the United States and for Israel.

Now, I also think that there's a certain trap that Trump has gotten into, right, where when you briefly espouse and then immediately deny all of these different other war objectives, right, I think his hope there is that, oh, people won't hold me accountable to any of them. I'm very much on the opposite side.

If you raise it as a potential war aim, you are now accountable to it because that statement didn't just go out to your own public.

It went out to your adversary. It went out to the rest of the world. Like, that has become your steady goal.

And if you don't want to be held accountable to that, keep your mouth shut in the first place. This was hyped up as a regime change war at the start. I do not believe that any of the denials we've heard since then are meaningful other than an attempt to save face.

Kyle, before you hop in, I just want to say the idea of a regime change operation in – and, you know, you guys will know this a lot better than I because you guys are actually American. And I just inhabit this weird space where I am a global citizen.

Americans don't like the idea of a regime change operation in the Middle East because it usually comes with massive rebuilding costs.

It comes with, you know, a lot of deaths. Just the idea. The whole regime change is an anathema to Americans at this point in time.

So I think that and the fact that it failed to achieve any meaningful regime change is why the Trump administration has been so adamant that, you know, this wasn't a regime change operation, but at the same time, the regime has changed. So it's, like Evan said, a crock of shit. Okay, so I'm sorry, guys, I got to jump in here.

We got to have some disagreement on the Middle East roundtable, so I will take the other side on this. So, Evan, to your point that look at actions, not words, completely agree.

So I'm not analyzing this in terms of what Donald Trump may or may not have said, which is why I don't particularly put any stock into whether he was flouting even potential regime change as credible or not credible as to what Washington's war aims were.

We are all, three of us, on the same page as to the Venezuela 2.0 essentially being the approach taken by Washington on this campaign, which is why we saw the assassination or elimination and decapitation of old man Khamenei. That in and of itself is not regime change to me, though.

So a situation in which Ghalibov would take over or be the point person where the U.S. negotiates through, even if that was to happen, this would not be regime change.

The Islamic Republic would still be there. Any situation in which the Islamic Republic is still standing is not regime change to me.

So, like, in Venezuela, you can have, it's like a regime change question mark asterisk situation because it's a far less, like I said earlier, it's a far more personalist system that was based around Maduro in a way that the Islamic Republic simply is not.

So even if you take out Khamenei and then have somebody more willing to work with the administration, this is simply not going to be regime change. There was no situation where an Iranian leader was going to disarm the proxy forces. At best, you could have a situation where they'd be more willing to make a deal.

And that in and of itself, I think, was Washington's key approach here. Because the longtime criticisms that we've all discussed today by Donald Trump and the GOP writ large have been that the original JCPOA was too weak. It didn't go far enough.

It was nuclear only. It didn't include the proxies. It didn't include all these different other aspects, including ballistic missiles, including drones, yada, yada.

So that in and of itself tells me that these were the critical components that the United States wanted to achieve in its war efforts here. Now, certainly it failed, but at the outset, this is not. essentially going to be a regime change war, whereas something like Iraq, or even potentially Venezuela, may be more of that.

But I do want to because and for reasons that you've already mentioned, which goes back, I think to, because I completely agree in the idea of like, no, decapitating the Iranian regime would not have resulted in regime change under any circumstances.

But I think that does go back to the false equivalency that you had mentioned earlier, right? Trying to make this into this Venezuela 2.0. Because if we look at Venezuela, the analog there suggests that even though, because the regime in Venezuela has not changed, right?

Delce Rodriguez is much more pliant, but she was also Maduro's, like, she was the next in the line of succession anyway. In that sense, the regime has not changed in the slightest. And yet, what the US has practically achieved is a state of regime change in action, if not in paperwork, shall we say.

And I think that is the real issue, is the false equivalency by the US, that same thing could happen here. Well, if we're talking about Venezuela's regime change, I'm slightly more open to the idea that Iran was regime change.

But this is just a redefinition, to be honest, in my opinion, of regime change, because they're not, if this is regime change, they're not making it like they used to, shall we say.

Well, that's the whole point, though, right?

Like, that's kind of what this Trumpian shifting of goalposts has always been about, is that, like, there's enough of a change here to kind of, like, credibly, not credibly, but, like, get away with having enough space to claim that, yes, we've achieved our outcomes here, but also our outcomes weren't really our objectives at all, and so on and so forth.

Right.

But in terms of the, again, that's just statement-wise. I'm talking about actions. So what was the US credibly seeking to achieve through its strikes here?

Was it seeking to outright topple the Islamic Republic? Or was it trying to topple the senior leadership in order to install people more willing to work with it? I think it's resolutely the case of the latter, which, to me, is not regime change.

And that is very much to the detriment of hardliners in Israel, including both Smotrich and Ben-Gavir, who have explicitly said that regime change should have been an Israeli stated objective in the campaign. All right, I'll let you guys jump in. Okay.

I fundamentally disagree that it's the latter. I think it's the former. Thus, the initial wave of strikes was completely targeted at toppling the Islamic Republic, the Islamic regime, rather.

And I say this because of the death of Ali Lajani. He was, by all accounts, not as extreme as any of the guys in charge of the IFGC right now. He would have been a major, major clear if they had let him leave.

The fact that they didn't let him leave, the fact that he was one of the figures who could have negotiated some sort of settlement, that, to me, says this was a campaign targeted at completely removing the Islamic regime. regime from power. And again, we have to go back to Trump's statements and Netanyahu's statements.

On the 20th of February, when this war was launched, they were basically saying to the Iranian people, get out, topple this regime.

It's something they've said and done. It's their words and their actions. Well, so the Larajani point is well taken, but it was Israel who killed Larajani, not the United States.

And there were accusations that Israel was trying to undermine U.S. efforts to reach a deal by taking out Larajani because it would leave fewer options to deal with. A lot of this is actually the Israeli perspective being brought to the table.

Similarly, when the war started, Netanyahu made an address in Farsi to the Iranian people saying, take to the streets.

The U.S. was far more restrained. Donald Trump was repeatedly seen saying that doing so would just result in more bloodbaths, and that's why he wouldn't call for it. But again, that relies entirely on words, which I, along with Evan, are more reluctant to put too much stock into.

So I just, I look at the original U.S. strikes, not Israeli strikes. Again, I'm completely on board. Israel wants the regime change, but I just don't see that as a core objective that the U.S. pursued.

I, quite frankly, I think you're assuming a bit too much American competence there.

If we want to look at actions, we can look at this 14-point MOU, and we can look at that and say, I don't think that any, any person with a really well-founded understanding of the Osanic Republic prior to this war or during this war would have advised really this or any of the other moves that the U.S. has made, up to and including starting this war in the

First place.

I think if we are looking for the U.S. to have made all of its decisions in a way that aligns with a country that fully understands the regime that it was trying to deal with, then no, right?

Maybe this wouldn't have been a series of actions where realistic regime change was an expectation.

But looking at how badly the U.S. has bungled the rest of it, I don't understand how we give them credit, or the current U.S. leadership credit, for the understanding of the distinction between that kind of regime decapitating action in Iran and regime change, especially not when we've also agreed that the prior experience in Venezuela was such an

Expectation setter for them.

I don't understand how we could possibly make the argument that the U.S. perceived itself to be doing anything other than regime change, whether or not that was correct, which it was not.

Because the bar is lower for my argument than it is to yours. Because in order to say that the U.S. was pursuing regime change, we'd have to be assuming a more competent war policy. My approach here is

Guys, hang on. The U.S. here simply went in, started bombing, and publicly stated, we're going to figure it out later. Iran.

We'll see what happens. There was no strategy here to begin with. So that inherently disarms the argument that this was a regime change operation.

All right, Wilfred. Why not in that case bomb anything other than... We cannot deny that the initial focus of those rounds of strikes was the Iranian leadership.

Why not target their offensive potential more? Why not reallocate those bombers, those spider jets, to then focus on long-range strike capabilities when we saw Iran launch weeks upon weeks upon weeks of continual attacks against the rest of the Gulf States? Why not?

Why focus so much on decapitation of the regime at a time when there were so many targets in circulation for Iran? Why target those specifically if regime change was not the goal? Because they wanted to get a different group of people in.

We're saying the same thing, but I just don't see this as regime change. The argument is that Ghalibaf leading the Islamic Republic is regime change. I just don't.

I'm not on that page. All right, Wilfred, I have to get to you, my friend. So, question, okay?

Do we all agree that this administration's attempt at waging war against Iran was incompetent? Can we all agree on that point? Yeah, it was very poorly thought out.

Okay, cool. So, it was a poorly thought out war, but you can have a poorly thought out war with still having objectives in mind. You just don't know how to get from point A to point C because you haven't defined B.

I don't think whoever is advising Trump on this war, which has turned out to be a lot of guys from the Foundation for Defense of Democracy, a think tank I have my own issues with. I don't think they had properly advised Trump on who would take over in case after, what's it called, after the decapitation strikes had happened.

So, we can't even say that Trump wanted to get a different set of guys in because he had no idea who would be the different set of guys to come in.

Oh, you're completely right on that. I completely agree. I just don't see that as regime change.

Then, in that case, we're devolving into a discussion of just the meaning of the words regime change, which is not relevant or pertinent to this discussion at all. Yeah, I mean, I think we're sort of saying the same thing.

I just have a much different view, I guess, of what regime change is because if the U.S. goal here was, what I'll say here is, my belief is the U.S. did not actively pursue a policy that would result in the downfall of the Islamic Republic writ large.

No, I don't believe that they followed a strategy that would actually result in that. I do believe that they were convinced that they were following a strategy that would result in that.

I think they were open to the possibility that it could, and they certainly would have welcomed it, but they did not pursue anything that was resolutely committed to delivering on it.

And that's why I say it was not a stated. objective or even something that they actively pursued too much to any extent well there are several dozen high-ranking iranian leaders and body bags right now that i think would beg to differ but i think i just don't see this to me this just is not regime change this is a separate argument entirely but i think in

Venezuela nor is what the us has achieved anywhere achieved anywhere else i think if we look at how the us has framed its venezuela operations again which we've all agreed is a good analog for the situation right that for the us seems to constitute and again regardless of the label regime change what that means in substance is a change substantial enough in

Leadership that the us now is interacting with that country in a fundamentally different way that certainly has been achieved through venezuela and i don't see how you could look at that and what the us considers a success and then look at its iran tactic tactics and say there is no through line there that's ridiculous to me but i do see it through line i

Just don't count it as regime change okay we're gonna move on all right so let's move on to point number 11. the united states undertakes that in light of the progress of negotiations frozen and restricted funds and assets of the islamic republic will be released and made fully available these funds whether held in the master account or transferred will be

Used for any final beneficiary payment determined by the central bank of the islamic republic and will be fully available for use the united states undertakes to issue all necessary permits and licenses on this basis thoughts on that point this is one of the first transfers of funds that the iranian republic will receive if i'm reading this correctly and i

Think this will again every time i look at this memorandum of understanding i can't help but think of the political cost that you know will come with this just the idea that iran will receive its frozen money its frozen assets will play horribly to the republican base yeah i think it'll certainly play poorly with more hawkish people i think that this war has

Sort of reset a lot of shall we say interests by the american electorate who will be more jaded with middle east misadventures than they were previously i think that this will include perceptions of the u.s relationship with israel i think this will include future ambitions in the middle east writ large and then looking down the rest of this mou points 12 13

And 14 are really kind of just boilerplate stuff you know to say that we will implement this we will sign a final agreement so on so forth so with that this deal is now in view the signing ceremony is supposed to go down on friday in switzerland we will see if we get that far which i think we all suspect that we will at least see a signing ceremony there and

From there really just an open door on what comes next so By the time that we meet again for the Middle East Roundtable next week, we will know much more about how this has played out.

So what are you each watching, gentlemen, in the coming weeks? And Kyle, let's go to you first.

Well, as always, I will be keeping an eye on Lebanon. This has been one hell of a year to be a Lebanon follower, by the way. For such a small country, it has just dominated coverage through its importance to Iran, to Israel, and to the wider region.

So we will be, I will be focusing on that in particular. Just want to reference for you all, Hezbollah, Perala, I may have mentioned this briefly earlier, but I'll dive in a little bit more here. Hezbollah believes Iran will not sign the final nuclear deal if Israel stays in Lebanon.

So not to put too much stock into what Hezbollah may be saying on this, but I do think that this could be a massive contention point. If Iran, which is fresh off of serious concessions here, declines to sign until Israel withdraws, this could cascade into another series of back and forth, either diplomatically or perhaps even militarily.

So we will see where it all goes from here.

On my end, I am also watching Lebanon, specifically because Lebanese President Joseph Awun said, I believe this was in a statement to the press, but it was in an article in Al Jazeera that he is open to Iran helping negotiate a ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel.

And for me, that is such a big, big move from him to say, okay, Iran got some really massive concessions. Maybe they can help Lebanon get some concessions as well.

But I'll also be watching internal Israeli politics, specifically because of statements from, I believe this was from Ben Gavir saying, they won't stop demolishing buildings in southern Lebanon, they won't stop getting people out of their homes, and they won't allow the population to return.

I'll be watching to see how Iran reacts to that, how the U.S. reacts to that, and whether there's any pushback on Israel. So a lot to watch in the coming days and weeks before you're back here for our next session.

And for my part, I will be watching, where I so often am, flight trackers, various ones that you can find. Specifically, my favorite, if anybody wants to try it out, is Flightradar24. What I'll be watching there are refueler and strategic airlifter movements to see where equipment is flowing if that flow begins.

Is the U.S. moving equipment out of the Middle East? Is it bringing munitions and resupply in? Or is everything just in a holding pattern?

So that, I think, will speak to the U.S.'s decisions about the way that it judges further kinetic action, even if this were to go hot again. So, on that note, thank you very much to everybody who has taken the time to be with us. Extra long episode today.

Obviously, we've had lots and lots to talk about, and I don't think that we've heard the... Yeah. Yeah. of the debate on any of these issues.

So thank you very, very much to Wilford and to Kyle for coming on. Thank you to everybody who is a subscriber to Fronts.co. You allow us to do what we do.

Truly, none of this would be possible without you. So thank you very much. That is it for us for this week.

This is Evan Maloney at the Middle East Roundtable, Fronts.co, Warfronts, Homefronts, and Associated Places, Products, and Industries signing off. Thank you.