After the US-Iran deal, the nagging question is: What was the war for?

 

After the US-Iran deal, the nagging question is: What was the war for?

 

The memorandum of understanding signed by US President Donald Trump and Iranian President Masoud Peshmerga on February 28 outlines the political, military, and economic consequences of the mistaken decision to attack Iran.

The human toll has already been clear. Thousands have been killed in Iran and Lebanon, many of them civilians.

The US, and consequently Israel, have suffered a strategic defeat.

The regime in Tehran has faced its worst fears, with the US, the world’s greatest power, and Israel, the Middle East’s major power, taking joint military action to weaken or destroy it.

The regime has not only survived, it has become stronger.

Iran’s strategy, which aims to close the Strait of Hormuz, cutting off a fifth of the world’s oil and gas supplies as well as other vital components of the global economy, has forced Trump to make a series of concessions that have angered and alarmed hard-line anti-Iranians in the United States and the Israeli government.

The memorandum of understanding, or MOU, calls for an end to the fighting in Lebanon.

Israel says that is not possible. It wants freedom of action in Lebanon, and the issue could further deepen the rift between Israel and the United States, and play into the hands of Iranian hardliners who oppose any deal with the United States.

In exchange for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, the MOU states that the US will lift its blockade of Iranian ports, ease sanctions so that Iran can earn billions of dollars by exporting oil, and begin the process of

 returning billions of dollars to Iran by recovering frozen assets abroad.

All of this is before they begin the real and difficult negotiations on the nuclear deal. This is the price of going back to the state it was in on February 27, the day before the war began.

On that day, the Strait of Hormuz was open to shipping and US and Iranian negotiators were discussing the nuclear deal.

The signing of the MOU means that negotiators will resume work and ships will be able to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.

Joe Biden’s Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, wrote on X that “the only ‘success’ of the ceasefire is probably the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, which was open even before the war began.” And now, apparently, we will pay Iran for it.’

The question of what the war was for is one that cannot be avoided and will not go away. It is Trump’s biggest foreign policy mistake yet.

It could also be the end of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s long political career.

He faces elections in October, and Israeli voters will hold him accountable, especially for security failures that were among the worst in Israel’s history, including the failure of its famed military and intelligence agencies to thwart Hamas’s planned attack on Israel from Gaza on October 7, 2023.

Netanyahu’s disregard for hardline military policies and diplomacy was at least partly to reassert himself as Israel’s “Mr. Security.”

Tehran has always been aware of the potential power to close the Strait of Hormuz. So have the US military, its diplomats and its intelligence agencies.

But Iran's former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, a cautious and elderly man, did not risk using the strait as a weapon. When Israel killed him and his close advisers in the early airstrikes of the war, his successors understood and rightly believed that they were in an existential war and did not hesitate to close the strait.

They have discovered what it takes to control a key corridor of the global economy. It is a weapon that is easier to use and much cheaper than the vast network of allies and proxies it has spent decades and billions building in the Middle East.

Except for the Assad regime in Syria, which fell in late 2024, Iran’s so-called axis of resistance is barely intact. However, it has been so damaged by Israeli actions that whether it can truly ‘resist’ is an open question.

Iran has also invested heavily in its nuclear program, which it consistently denies was intended to produce weapons, but which has certainly given Tehran an option and a threat. But it has also led to a war that, despite the regime’s survival, has inflicted enormous damage on Iran.

In contrast, closing the strait was easy and had immediate and devastating effects, affecting Arab oil-producing countries and other parts of the world.

The power of the US and Israeli air forces achieved several tactical successes. But it was not enough to avoid a strategic defeat. This was because the US and Israeli regime change strategy was based on several simple and false premises.

They assumed that killing the Supreme Leader would bring down the regime. But over nearly half a century, Iran’s institutions have been built to withstand attempts to overthrow them.

This was not the case in Venezuela, a corrupt Latin American dictatorship, where the government collapsed after its leader was kidnapped and put on trial in the US.

The Iranian regime is undoubtedly corrupt and deeply repressive. Its officials killed thousands of protesters on the streets of Iran in January. But it is also rooted in ideology, religious belief, and a sense of national security, sacrifice, and survival that flourished during Saddam Hussein’s devastating war with Iraq in the 1980s.

Israel’s military operations in Lebanon strain Trump-Netanyahu ties

, Image source: Reuters

, Image caption Israel’s military operations in Lebanon strain Trump-Netanyahu ties

When he went to war, President Trump said that Tehran’s regime would fall. He told the Iranian people to prepare for a once-in-a-generation opportunity to take back their country. Shortly after, he called for its unconditional surrender.

Netanyahu, who repeatedly failed to persuade Trump’s predecessors in the White House to go to war with Iran, used biblical language to describe the gravity of the moment: “This alliance allows us to do what I have wanted for 40 years: to completely destroy the terrorist regime.”

Neither side achieved their goal.

The memorandum of understanding is not a final agreement. It is an agreement to discuss the biggest issue between them, Iran’s nuclear program. But it includes important concessions for Iran at the outset. If the talks go ahead, the United States has said it will lift sanctions.

All of this hinges on the success of the 60-day nuclear deal talks, which can and probably will be extended, because the issues are complex. The two sides do not trust each other. A lot can go wrong. Hardliners in Washington, Tehran and Israel do not want the deal to succeed.

Iran may overreact, demanding more in future talks, and jeopardizing the economic gains that could prop up its fragile economy.

But this deal is far better than a war that has claimed thousands of lives and threatened a global recession.

If a nuclear deal is reached that is acceptable to both the United States and Iran, and if both keep their promises, the Middle East could change. But that is a big “if,” and it can only happen after a long and difficult negotiation.