There Are Some Real Humdingers in Trump’s Iran Deal

War Stories

It’s more like a memorandum of little understanding!

By

Fred Kaplan

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June 17, 2026 3:07 PM

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Now that the text of the U.S.–Iran ceasefire agreement is widely circulating in the media , it’s clear why President Donald Trump wanted to keep it secret from the time he announced its existence last Sunday—his birthday—until the ceremony where the parties sign it this Friday. (Because of the leaks, a White House official read aloud the final, only slightly altered version to reporters on Wednesday.)

It turns out the “deal,” as Trump called it (though it’s really a “framework” for a deal and a fuzzy framework at that—more like a memorandum of little understanding), is tilted entirely to Iran’s advantage and provides no meaningful leverage for the U.S. to impose demands on Iran in the subsequent negotiations for a permanent peace.

Those negotiations are supposed to begin after the framework is signed in Geneva this Friday and are to last 60 days.

Trump and his aides have heralded as a major accomplishment the eighth of the framework’s 14 paragraphs, which states: “The Islamic Republic of Iran reaffirms that it shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons.” Notice the word reaffirms . The Obama-era nuclear deal , which Iran and six other countries signed in 2015 (and Trump scuttled three years later), stated, in its prologue, in almost identical language: “Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons.” Even there, Iran “reaffirmed” the pledge because it had made the same promise when it signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1970. (See Articles II and III of the NPT in particular.)

Maybe the Iranians were lying then, maybe they’re lying now. The point is, in this respect, Trump’s big tout is nothing new.

The framework’s first paragraph declares “the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon.” Permanent is a big word, especially when it characterizes peace in any patch of the Middle East, where, as Trump said two weeks ago , “ceasefire” means “shooting in a moderate manner.” But let’s take the article at face value. Even if the U.S. and Iran are sincere in this pledge, the war front is explicitly said to include Lebanon, where Israel has been bombing Hezbollah militias and the militias have been firing back. Neither Israel nor Hezbollah was involved in the negotiations of this framework. They will not be included in the signing party. Israeli officials have said they will not be bound by any final treaty’s terms. And while Trump has assailed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “a very difficult guy,” it would be hard to blame Israel’s politicians for retaliating for more missile attacks on their country. One can imagine this scenario: All is well on the Iranian front; Hezbollah fires some missiles at Israel; Israel retaliates; Iran pulls out of the deal, citing the exchange as a violation; Trump publicly blames Israel for sabotaging his peace; anti-Israel sentiments worldwide intensify. This would very much be in Hezbollah’s—and perhaps Iran’s—interest.

The most bizarre paragraph in the framework calls on the U.S. not only to end its naval blockade within 30 days (reasonable) but also to “remove its [military] forces from the proximity” of Iran. It’s unclear what “proximity” means in this context. The U.S. has long maintained massive air and naval bases, patrolled the waters, and occasionally deployed troops in many areas well within Iran’s proximity.  Does this mean that, by signing the framework, the U.S. agrees to shut down those bases? If not, what does the clause mean, and why did U.S. negotiators agree to it without explicit clarification? Did anybody on our side of the table read this thing?

There is more still in this page-and-a-half document that’s certain to set off political fireworks—most of all, the four paragraphs involving payments of vast sums of money to Iran. One calls for lifting all economic sanctions against Iran—those imposed by the U.S., other countries, and the U.N. This goes well beyond the Obama-era nuclear deal, which lifted only the sanctions stemming from Iran’s nuclear activities; it kept in place the sanctions penalizing Iran for its ballistic-missile production and its support of terrorist groups. Trump’s deal lifts those sanctions too—while putting no limits on Iran’s missile program or its funding of terrorists.

In another of these articles, the U.S. pledges to develop a plan, along with its Gulf partners, to raise “at least $300 billion” for Iran’s rehabilitation and…