The Memorandum of Understanding, which ostensibly ends the four-month war between the US and Iran, highlighted the deep defeat of the US.
Moreover, a Quincy Institute webinar on military lessons from the war, shortly before the release of the MOU, enumerated the many ways in which the US’s failures in its ill-fated war reveal how drastically the US military dominance has been undermined over the long term.
On the subject of the relative decline of US power and influence, the war’s effects on world energy supplies—especially in Asia—will intensify political and economic pressures for alternative—non-fossil—energy sources.
China is already light years ahead of the US in clean energy production technologies, while the president Donald Trump he thinks only in the very short term, as he maximizes oil and gas production and exports trying to revive the dirty coal mining.
Conclusion: The US loss in this completely avoidable chosen imperial war was heavy. That said, countries and territories as small and weak as Cuba AND Greenland remain deeply vulnerable.
The commitments of the Memorandum of Understanding include:
- The immediate cessation of military operations, including Lebanon.
- The US and Iran “refrain from the threat or use of force against each other”.
- Mutual respect for US and Iranian sovereignty.
- The US and Iran are committed to negotiating a final deal within 60 days, although this timetable can be extended by mutual consent.
- The US and regional partners will develop a $300 billion plan for economic reconstruction and development in Iran. The implementation mechanism should be finalized within 60 days.
- The US commits to “ending all kinds of sanctions against the Islamic Republic” including United Nations the sanctions.
- The US will completely lift its naval blockade within 30 days and withdraw its forces “from the vicinity of the Islamic Republic within 30 days of the final agreement.”
- Iran will engage in dialogue with the Sultanate of Oman “to determine the future administration of maritime services in the Strait of Hormuz in discussion with other Persian Gulf littoral states in accordance with applicable international law” and the rights of littoral states.
- Iran “reaffirms that it will not acquire or develop nuclear weapons” as was its stated policy before the war. Additionally, under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency, its current stockpile of highly enriched uranium will be blended and enrichment for “Iran’s nuclear needs” will be agreed upon in the final deal.
- Pending the final deal, Iran will maintain the status quo of its nuclear program and the US will not impose any new sanctions or deploy additional forces to the region.
Perhaps as the “good margin” with which the Nixon administration sought to minimize the domestic political costs of the US’s loss in Vietnamby dragging out negotiations and agreeing to an extremely vague framework, President Trump hopes to minimize the impact of his lost battle in November. mid-term elections.
Iran will dominate and ultimately control the Strait of Hormuz for the foreseeable future. How it exercises that power, with its global economic implications, will be a new feature of the emerging multipolar world order. The escape clause that allows negotiations to extend beyond the 60-day deadline should prepare us for a long, difficult and drawn-out process.
And in true Trumpian form, despite pledging to “refrain from the threat or use of force against each other,” within hours of issuing the Memorandum of Understanding, our president threatened to resume bombing unless he was satisfied with the outcome of the negotiations. (This may have been more for domestic political consumption than a threat Iran would take seriously.)
With 1,000 Gazans killed since that ceasefire was announced, and with the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu more concerned with winning his nation’s October elections and staying out of jail, the ability of the US to enforce an end to Israeli military operations in or its occupation of its northern neighbor is in doubt. Iran’s confirmation that it will not procure or develop nuclear weapons it is nothing new.
This was the case before President Trump withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal negotiated by the President Barack Obama and was repeated many times by Iranian leaders before the Trump-Netanyahu regime change effort, which resulted in a harsher government.
Like Japan, South Korea, Sweden and Poland, Iran will remain a nuclear-threatened state, and the MOU allows for enrichment for medical use and energy production, as Iran has insisted for years.
But Trump’s loss will have global reverberations. Elites in many countries will take a North Korean lesson from this and the Ukraine wars: If you have nuclear weapons, states with nuclear weapons will not attack you.
Diplomatically, between this globally catastrophic war, Trump’s total disregard for allies in starting and fighting the war, the cutting off of US military aid to Ukraine and its inability to facilitate either a cease-fire or peace negotiations in that war, the Euro-Atlantic alliance is on life support and solidarity between Americans and Europeans it is but a memory.
And as we look to potential future crises, Europeans are overestimating Russia’s military power and racing to create a European Union superpower – either within or independent of niton.
Then there is the lesson from the Iran war for US-China competition for the Asia-Pacific region hegemony. The failure of Trump’s war with Iran illuminated the US-China dynamics and realities at play over the past decade or more.
As listed in the Quincy Institute webinar with military analysts Brandon Carr, Jennifer Kavanagh and Kelly Grieco, the war shows that the US is unable to defend Taiwan militarily, nor will it be able to credibly threaten to defeat China in a non-nuclear war. (No one wins a nuclear war!!!)
- The destruction of infrastructurefighter jets, missiles and more at US bases in the Persian Gulf demonstrated the vulnerability of hundreds of US bases within the first island chain (Japan, PhilippinesTaiwan) along the east coast of China, and this likely applies as far as Guam.
- France, Spainand Italy denied US use of its bases and airspace in their countries to attack Iran. This illustrates that the US cannot be assured of the ability to use its hundreds of bases and military assets in East Asia in a future war with China. Japan, which has its most militaristic government since 1945, is likely to accept the use, but the use of bases in South Korea and the Philippines cannot be counted on.
- Iran’s drones and missiles established area denial, albeit at lower altitudes. China, with its far greater number of missiles and a far greater industrial capacity than that of the US, will be able to similarly dominate US forces within the First Island Chain.
- The withdrawal of US missile defense missiles to protect Israel and its Gulf bases was severe. Given the weak industrial capacity of the United States, it will take years to restore the arsenal to pre-war levels, while China continues to build missiles and drones at levels unmatched by the US.
- China’s navy is already larger than the Pentagon’s, and the US shipbuilding industry is anemic.
Conclusion: If the war accomplished anything, it accelerated the decline of US power, influence, and economic security.
Instead of spending billions The White House Wars of goods, futile attempts to regain military superiority, subsidizing the military-industrial-congressional complex, and turning back the clock on Jim Crow America, we would do well to take a page from President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and rebuild economic and human security for the American people.
Dr. Joseph Gerson is president of the Campaign for Peace, Disarmament and Common Security; co-chairman of the International Peace Bureau; and author of Empire and the Bomb. Follow him on X at @gerson4peace
