Is the Iran-US MoU dead—or working exactly as intended? | Eye for Iran | EP 111 |

So let's start with what I think is a defining question of this week.

Did the MOU, I mean, was it about failure or did it fundamentally change the rules of conflict? In essence, have we been thinking about the MOU all wrong? Was it ever designed to deliver peace or maybe it was to create a new set of rules when it comes to confrontation? Jonathan, we'll start with you.

Well, if you ask that question from a person like Mohsen Rezaei from the IRGC, he laid out his opinion very clearly that he was talking to the opponents of the deal inside Iran, clearly stating that fear not, this MOU was not meant to last to begin with, which really is indicative of the IRGC's mindset here, thinking that they can either impose more by escalating because they don't feel deterred by any means, And worst case, they can absorb another round of attacks and move on.

So from their perspective, it was more or less not a lose-lose scenario necessarily, unlike what we thought.

But to your earlier point about whether this MOU was necessarily seen as black and white, one side lost and one side won, in both camps, there was strong opposition to them.

So both from the U.S. side and from the Iranian side, you'd notice that neither side was really fully content with how it played out, which was maybe in its own way, doomed to fail.

Arash, what do you think?

Well, I certainly don't think it was doomed to fail.

And I don't think, in fact, I don't think it has failed actually yet.

It's true that the president said it's dead.

It's true that there is some resumption.

But I think both sides really are not interested in restarting the war in a sort of full-scale level.

So I think it's likely that the MOU can continue.

And what will this MOU do? It will basically stop fighting between Iran and the United States, restore the trade in the Strait of Hormuz, and provide for talks about the one issue in which United States has the major bone with Iran to pick, which is the nuclear issue.

Now, I don't think this will happen smoothly.

I don't think it will happen during the 60 days.

But I think it's very important to look at the debate inside Iran.

Jonathan pointed out to Reza's comments, but I think it's perhaps more important to look at the fact that the major architects of the deal, i.e. people like Pazeshkian and Arakhchi and Ghalibov.

I mean, Pazeshkian is not really a major architect of it, but as someone who represents that side of things.

I mean, they were attacked heavily by the ultra hardliners in Iran, right? The Peshkian and Arakhchi were chased down in the streets during the communist funeral.

While they shouted slogans against them, they said, we don't want the MOU, we want to kill Trump.

So basically, look, Iran has a basic choice.

Does it want to continue escalate things with the United States and continue fighting a war with the United States? Or does it want to wind things down and perhaps even get to an agreement that would lift the sanctions on the Iranian economy and, you know, change things in this way.

It has a choice to make and it has an internal debate about this.

I don't think this debate is settled.