The memorandum of understanding signed between the United States and Iran on June 17 to try to end the war expired this Monday after two months, amid new mutual recriminations between the two enemies and much uncertainty about when and how a conflict that began on February 28, has reached a deadlock and shows no sign of ending, might continue. Neither side seems to regret the death of an agreement that never really came to life.
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In a series of comments from the Oval Office, U.S. President Donald Trump has ruled out renewing the memorandum of understanding he had enthusiastically announced 60 days ago. He has also reiterated that Iran, according to him, is willing to reach some kind of pact, but will not offer the conditions he demands. “They want to reach an agreement, but they are not going to close the kind of deal I consider necessary,” he said.
With the conflict entrenched and no signs of resolution, energy prices higher than six months ago, and increasingly poor approval ratings—a Reuters poll this Monday gives him a 33% approval, the lowest of the Republican’s second term—the U.S. president chooses to dig in his heels. Not only does he assure he will not yield: he now expands his threats and extends them also to Oman, a U.S. ally, warning it of “hard” bombing if it continues its contacts with Iran to agree on some kind of joint toll mechanism in the Strait of Hormuz.
“If [Oman] gets in our way, we will bomb them mercilessly,” Trump declared early Monday in a phone interview with a reporter from his favorite TV channel, Fox News, according to the journalist himself, Trey Yingst, correspondent in Tel Aviv. In his statements from the Oval Office, he did not want to soften his words. “They are not behaving very well,” he pointed out.
The U.S. president’s threats come barely ten days after Iranian and Omani authorities announced they were very close to closing a pact to manage maritime traffic in Hormuz, which is under the double blockade of Iran and the United States.
This is not the first time Trump has threatened Oman, a country that participated in the peace negotiations prior to the war and had been considered as the venue for talks that had been planned in the memorandum of understanding that expired this Monday. The Republican had already lashed out at his Arab ally in May, when Iran threatened to impose permanent tolls in the strait and contacted its neighbor across to create a joint mechanism.
But it is the first time the U.S. president refers to Oman in this way since he and his Iranian counterpart, Masud Pezeshkián, signed the memorandum establishing a 60-day truce, a period in which talks for permanent peace were to take place and, above all, to decide the future of the Strait of Hormuz, crucial for the global energy sector and the course of the global economy.
It is also the first time he does so when contacts between Oman and Iran around Hormuz seem to be entering the final stretch. Iranian authorities insisted this Monday that the agreement to manage maritime transit in the strait is imminent, and indicated there is an understanding with their neighbor regarding the routes. But they are also working on finalizing a more detailed pact with measures and a joint declaration.
“There is an understanding about the traffic route map, but we are and will finalize the understanding in the form of a ‘package.’ That is, the map plus a joint declaration,” said the spokesperson for the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Esmaeil Baqaei, at a press conference.
The expiration of the memorandum does not change the situation on the ground. The provisions of the agreement also stipulated that both parties could extend the term if they wished.
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An ambiguous document
Both Washington and Tehran have declared for weeks that the 14-point document that generated so much expectation at the time was nothing but wet paper, and they blamed each other for the failure.
A failure that was clear almost from the start. The rush to reach some kind of pact, Trump’s impatience to announce a solution to a war that bores him and drags down his polls, the huge differences in the positions of the enemy governments, and the hope that everything could be fixed in the detailed talks phase produced a very short and very ambiguous document.
That imprecision caused disagreements to multiply: about what should be applied and, above all, how it should be implemented. From lifting sanctions and paying a reconstruction fund to Iran for a minimum of 300 billion dollars (about 260 billion euros), to ending hostilities in southern Lebanon occupied by Israel. Including Iran’s commitment not to manufacture nuclear weapons.
To no one’s surprise, the ultimate stumbling block remains the Strait of Hormuz: the U.S. president declared it unconditionally open; Iran maintained that final control of that bottleneck was its issue and that point 5 of the memorandum recognizes this. Therefore, it considers that ships passing through must comply with the routes the Islamic Republic deems appropriate. Iranian forces have attacked merchant ships that have not done so. In turn, U.S. troops have responded with bombings on Iranian targets, which Tehran returned with strikes on U.S. bases in neighboring Arab countries.
Last week, U.S. forces opened fire on a Panamanian-flagged cargo ship trying to evade the blockade imposed by Washington. It was a new step in a cycle of attacks and reprisals that has been repeating almost weekly, usually starting with a hostile act by one of the two armies and ending with a Trump comment on social media—followed by a statement from some Iranian spokesperson in Tehran—in which threats of bombings and use of force alternate with the message that diplomatic contacts are advancing and an agreement is within reach.
On Friday, Scott Bessent, Trump’s Treasury Secretary, said he would impose new measures to economically punish Iran, although it is unclear if he can significantly increase that pressure: the regime is already burdened with economic sanctions, trade relations are nonexistent, and Tehran has shown over six months of war that it is more than willing to absorb economic hardships and not bend before its enemy. Meanwhile, the Republican threatened to declare the Strait of Hormuz U.S. territory. Almost simultaneously, the head of the Iranian army, General Amir Hatami, announced a reward of 30,000 dollars for the death or capture of U.S. soldiers.
The U.S. president assures he is in no hurry and insists on declaring the rival country defeated. And that his goal is to ensure Iran can never develop a nuclear weapon. “The number one goal is, and always will be, that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon in any way, manner, or form,” he wrote this Monday in a message on Truth, his social network.
In his statements to the Fox journalist, the president said that, in his opinion, Iran “must wave the white flag of surrender.”
