Baba UmarWashington DC — On Monday, Iran, the US and mediator Pakistan all announced a memorandum of understanding aimed at ending the war in the Middle East, which broke out on February 28 when the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran, killing the longtime supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, much of the other top brass, and numerous civilians.
But Iran swiftly retaliated by asserting control over the Strait of Hormuz — the narrow chokepoint through which one-fifth of global oil once passed — and unleashing barrages of missiles and drones on US-allied Gulf countries, shattering the oil-rich nations' hard-earned reputation for stability.
The war has claimed thousands of lives, sparked a global energy crisis, and fuelled inflation in the US economy.
The memorandum of understanding, brokered primarily by Pakistan and scheduled to be signed in Geneva on Friday, is expected to lift the blockade of both the Strait of Hormuz and Iranian ports. The US and Iran will then begin two months of intensive negotiations on Tehran's nuclear programme and the possible lifting of sanctions.
Despite public declarations of victory by both Iran and the US, analysts contend that neither side prevailed.
"Both sides lost, in different ways," Alan Eyre, a former senior US diplomat, tells TRT World.
Eyre, who was a core member of the US nuclear negotiating team from its inception in 2010 to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement with Iran, says the US lost some of its "soft power" by initiating an "illegal, immoral and deeply mistaken war of choice."
"It also lost the strategic deterrence value of its military might, showing that although the US could dominate militarily, it still could not achieve any of its strategic goals," notes Eyre.
Iran lost because it will emerge from this war "even more impoverished economically", with a new "more militarised regime" even less willing and able to provide for its people, argues Eyre, who also served as first-ever Persian language spokesperson of the US Department of State.
War objectives
In their conflict with Iran, the Trump administration and Israel pursued goals that included eliminating or severely degrading Tehran's nuclear and ballistic missile programme, neutralising or destroying Iran's naval capabilities, weakening its network of regional proxies, and overthrowing the Iranian government.
Iran portrayed the war as an existential defensive struggle for national survival. Rather than seeking a conventional military victory, Tehran relied primarily on asymmetric warfare to impose the heavy costs for the US and its regional allies, with the aim of forcing a negotiated settlement.
Iran's objective was to withstand the combined US-Israel assault, maintain internal control, and avoid collapse. To achieve this, Iran sought to deter further attacks and restore a regional balance of power through missile and drone strikes on US and allied targets. It disrupted shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, and used its regional proxies and partners against US and Israeli forces.
Eyre argues that, in another sense, Iran "won" because the US failed to achieve any of the strategic objectives it had hoped to secure through the war.
"Iran was able to withstand the combined military onslaught of the US and Israel and still not capitulate to US demands, and was even able to both weaponise and monetise control of the Strait of Hormuz, giving it an invaluable new form of strategic deterrence," he says.
The memorandum, concluded by Washington and Tehran with the help of mediating parties – including Pakistan, Qatar, Egypt, Türkiye, Saudi Arabia and Oman – is no small achievement, given their mutual mistrust, according to International Crisis Group.
"The memorandum represents a step away from lose-lose dynamics. It also will allow both the US and Iran to claim a measure of victory: Washington likely will insist that the memorandum reopens the strait to unimpeded traffic, returning to the pre-war status quo, while Iran will claim that it retains control of a waterway it can close at will," says the Crisis Group.
The agreement implicitly recognises that neither side was able to deliver a knock-out blow, but that both have sufficient capacity to impose significant costs on the other, it adds.
"Finalising the MoU put a floor under a ceasefire that was at times close to collapse, and gives the two sides a framework to move into more detailed nuclear negotiations," Ali Vaez, project director at ICG, tells TRT World in a statement.
Vaez says both sides have prioritised the essential and deferred the substantial.
"Reopening the Strait of Hormuz gives relief from months of mutually assured economic disruption, aims to give proof of concept that they can each deliver, and set up more granular talks for a nuclear deal that eluded them in the past," adds Vaez.
Naysan Rafati, a senior Iran analyst at the ICG, believes that finalising the memorandum may prove the easy part unless US and Iran quickly build on the momentum to resolve the issues it deferred.
"Ideally this would occur in parallel to a regional track that tries to bring Iran and its neighbours around the same table after months of unprecedented clashes between them," says Rafati in a statement sent to TRT World.
"This MoU provides a reprieve, not a resolution. It moves Washington and Tehran away from the lose-lose dynamics of a precarious truce toward nuclear negotiations whose substance is as familiar as it has previously proven irreconcilable."
Lebanon fighting
US President Donald Trump has declared the deal includes reopening the Strait of Hormuz to toll-free shipping and lifting the US naval blockade of Iran, while talks continue on nuclear limits and sanctions relief.
Iranian officials say the agreement also provides for an immediate suspension of hostilities across multiple fronts, including Lebanon, arguing the word Lebanon is mentioned three times in the memorandum.
Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has also confirmed that both sides have declared "the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon."
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi emphasised on Tuesday that an end to the war on all fronts, including the cessation of Israeli attacks in Lebanon, is a "prerequisite" for ending the war between Iran and the US.
However, Israel maintains that it is not bound by this provision of the US-Iran deal and has stated that its military will not end the invasion of southern Lebanon.
The US-Iran deal could also turn into a major political headache for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who plans to run in elections later this year amid mounting domestic criticism of his wartime leadership. His critics say he failed in Gaza, Iran, as well as in Lebanon.
On Monday, Israeli opposition leaders and hardline lawmakers strongly criticised the US-Iran deal, warning that it would fail to protect Israel's interests and represented a "dangerous turn" for the country's security.
But on Tuesday, US President Trump, who has already voiced frustration that the parallel Israeli invasion of Lebanon was complicating his efforts to end the war with Iran, slammed Israeli actions in Lebanon.
He told reporters in France, where he is attending a G7 meeting: "I'm not happy with the way Israel has handled themselves with Lebanon and with Hezbollah. They should have been able to do the job faster. It just goes on forever, and when that happens, it throws a negative light on the big deal, and that's the deal with Iran."
The ICG warns that any escalation in Lebanon risks jeopardising the US-Iranian agreement, arguing that President Trump will need to use its leverage to prevent this scenario.
Eyre tells TRT World that Iran seems to have successfully incorporated Lebanon into the overall war effort, and although he expects ongoing hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, "it is unlikely these hostilities will lead the US to resume military action against Iran."
"President Trump is unlikely to resume military action against Iran, given the upcoming mid-term elections and the likelihood Iran would respond by re-closing the Strait of Hormoz and/or attacking GCC infrastructure," says the former US diplomat.
