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Friday, June 19, 2026
[Salon] MOU: Iran Gains stature, Arab States Diminished, US Humiliated - Guest Post by Farhang Jahanpour
https://www.juancole.com/2026/06/turning-point-relations.html
MOU: Iran Gains stature, Arab States Diminished, US Humiliated
Farhang Jahanpour 06/19/2026
Berkshire (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – The MoU agreed by Iran and the United States has stunned the world. Oil prices have dropped from a high of $120 at the beginning of the Israeli-US war against Iran to $77 per barrel, slightly above their level before the war. Stock markets have reached new heights, and the possibility of a global recession or even an economic meltdown has been averted, though choppy waters remain ahead.
It is still too early to assess the full implications of what is, without doubt, a major Iranian win and a humiliating US and Israeli defeat. Its ramifications will not only affect the US’s standing and relations in the Middle East, but may well affect its global power and its rivalry with Russia and China. It has totally transformed the public view of the GCC countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE) as islands of stability and prosperity in a turbulent region, but as vulnerable small states at the mercy of bigger neighbours. It has enhanced Iran’s position as the only state in the Middle East which has stood up not only to Israel, but also to the greatest superpower in the world and has emerged undefeated, although sustaining great losses. It has opened a major rift between Israel and its greatest patron, the United States, has diminished the power of the Israeli lobby and has greatly weakened public opinion of Israel in the United States and in the world as a whole.
With its criminal genocide in Gaza, massacres and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and Lebanon and its attacks on most of its neighbours, implicating the United States in those crimes and pushing America to two unpopular and illegal wars of aggression against Iran, Netanyahu’s Israel has done great disservice to the United States and its global reputation. The prime minister has made Israel totally dependent on American power and has revealed its vulnerability, turning the world against the Zionist state.
Practically the entire world has breathed a sigh of relief at the end of the US-Iran war and has backed the deal, which was revealed for full effect by President Trump at the G7 summit in France. However, the Israeli government and its powerful lobby in the United States are up in arms and trying to sabotage the deal by any means possible.
It should be pointed out that both wars of aggression against Iran last June and on 28 February 2026 were launched at Israeli instigation. Immediately after the start of the June war, Secretary of State Marco Rubio dissociated the United States from the war, saying that it was launched by Israel without US involvement, although President Trump later joined the war and bombed the Iranian nuclear sites.
After the start of the second war, again Marco Rubio said that Israel had informed the United States that it was going to attack Iran, and knowing that Iran would attack US forces in return, the United States decided to pre-emptively bomb Iran. So, the main responsibility for both wars rests squarely on Netanyahu’s shoulders. It is now clear why Israel is so unhappy about the miserable failure of the two wars that it pushed the United States to join against Iran.
To appreciate the importance of what has happened, we must look back to the start of the recent conflict. After the landmark nuclear deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, JCPOA) reached between Iran and the Obama Administration in 2015, Netanyahu and his cronies in the United States went wild. In an unprecedented move, Netanyahu addressed an AIPAC-dominated Congress, called the deal the worst deal ever and vowed to crush it. With President Trump’s election, Netanyahu found his opportunity and persuaded Trump to withdraw from the deal in 2018 and to reimpose crippling sanctions on Iran. During President Trunps’s second term, Netanyahu even went further to achieve what he called his 40-year dream and involve the United States in a war with Iran.
According to The New York Times, Netanyahu and the head of MOSSAD persuaded President Trump that by decapitating the Iranian leadership, the Iranian people would rise up and the Iranian government would collapse like a house of cards within a few days, and America could repeat its venture in Venezuela.[1]
President Trump called on the Iranian people to rise up and topple the regime, assuring them that the United States was behind them. He boasted that he would appoint the next Iranian Supreme Leader. He even threatened to obliterate Iranian civilisation, which would never return, to bomb Iran back to the Stone Age, and demanded unconditional surrender. The MoU has, in fact, represented the US’s unconditional surrender to Iranian demands. It represents all the 14 points that Iran put forward as a basis of negotiations, which, allegedly, President Trump tore up and threw in the dustbin. Here is the text of the MoU signed by President Masoud Pezeshkian and US President Donald Trump separately on Wednesday.
1- The US and Iran, and their allies in the current war, “declare the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon, and undertake from now on not to initiate any war or any military operation against each other, and to refrain from the threat or use of force against each other, and ensuring the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon.”
The Inclusion of Lebanon in the agreement, ensuring its territorial integrity and sovereignty, is very significant and positions Iran as the main supporter of Lebanon in the Middle East, and practically wins US support for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon
2- “The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America undertake to respect each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and to refrain from interfering in each other’s internal affairs.”
This is the first time since the victory of the Islamic Revolution that the United States has so clearly recognised Iran’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and has pledged not to interfere in its internal affairs.
3- “The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America commit to negotiating and achieving the final Deal, in maximum 60 days extendable with mutual consent.”
4- “Immediately upon the signing of this MoU, the United States of America will begin the removal of its naval blockade and any disturbances or impediments against the Islamic Republic of Iran, and will fully end the naval blockade within 30 days…”
“Upon the signing of this MoU, the Islamic Republic of Iran will make arrangements using its best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels, with no charge for 60 days only, from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman, and vice versa…”
This clause recognises Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz. Although Iran agrees not to charge a toll for the ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz for the next 60 days only, there is nothing preventing it from imposing charges for providing services for the ships. After all, technically, the Strait of Hormuz is not an international waterway connecting two open seas or oceans together. It is a passage only to the Persian Gulf, whose entire northern coastline of approximately 1,800 to 2,444 kilometres (1,120 to 1,516 Miles) belongs to Iran.
“The United States of America undertakes, with regional partners, to develop a definitive mutually agreed plan with at least USD 300 Billion, for the reconstruction and economic development of the Islamic Republic of Iran…”
Ironically, this hefty sum, the entire amount that Iran demanded, is not paid by Israel and the United States, who started the war, but by the GCC countries, who opposed the war, pleaded with Trump not to start it and who suffered great losses as a result of the war.
“The United States of America undertakes to terminate all types of sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran, including the United Nations Security Council resolutions, IAEA Board of Governors resolutions, and all unilateral U.S. sanctions, primary and secondary, in an agreed upon schedule as part of the final deal…”
This actually goes even further than the commitments made in the JCPOA by the Obama administration.
8- “The Islamic Republic of Iran reaffirms that it shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America have agreed to resolve the disposition of stockpiled enriched material pursuant to a mechanism that will be mutually agreed upon, in accordance with the schedule mentioned in paragraph 7, with the minimum methodology to be down blending on-site, under the supervision of the IAEA. The two Parties also agree to discuss the issue of enrichment, and other mutually agreed matters relating to the Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear needs, based on a satisfactory framework being agreed upon in the final Deal. The final Deal will confirm the provisions of this paragraph…”
After attempting and failing to grab the 400kg of Iran’s 60% enriched uranium, this is a major climbdown to agree with Iran to dilute or get rid of the material under IAEA supervision, rather than allowing the United States to forcefully remove it.
“Pending the final Deal, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America agree to maintain the status quo; the Islamic Republic of Iran will maintain the current status quo of its nuclear program, and the United States of America will not impose any new sanctions, and will not deploy any additional forces in the region.”
This is another major concession to Iran to maintain the current status quo, even though the war was allegedly waged to put an end to Iran’s nuclear programme.
“The United States of America undertakes that immediately upon the signing of this MoU, and until the termination of sanctions, the U.S. Department of Treasury will issue waivers for the export of Iranian crude oil, petroleum products and derivatives, and all associated services including banking transactions, insurances, transportation, etc.”
The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America agree that an executive mechanism will be established to monitor the successful implementation of this MoU and the future compliance of the final Deal.
After signing this MoU, and subject to the beginning of the implementation of paragraphs 1, 4, 5, 10 and 11 of this MoU and the continuing implementation of these measures, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America will start negotiations regarding the final Deal exclusively on the other paragraphs.
The final Deal will be endorsed by a binding UNSC resolution.
This paragraph is also very important as the deal will not remain merely as an MoU between the two countries, but will be turned into a firm legal treaty by being “endorsed by a binding UNSC resolution.”
All in all, it means that Iran has achieved all its demands, while Israel and the United States did not achieve any of their stated aims. Of course, a lot can go wrong between now and the end of the 60 days, mainly by Israel trying to sabotage the deal, especially with its continued aggression in Lebanon.
Many opponents of the Iranian government maintain that while the Iranian regime has achieved a great deal as a result of this MoU, the Iranian people have gained nothing. I don’t necessarily think that is the case. If the regime does not moderate its policies and ease its restrictions, the struggles of Iranians for a better future will continue. However, the way they go about achieving their rights may change. The opposition will be in the form of mass action and peaceful protest, rather than resorting to force or relying upon foreign help, which has proved to be illusory. The killing of a large number of civilians and the destruction of a vast section of industry and infrastructure have proved to many Iranians that their salvation comes from within, rather than from violent action from outside.
Since the assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran has functioned mainly in the form of collective leadership centred on the Supreme National Security Council, dominated by the elected president and the Majles Speaker, with minimum interference by the new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei. The late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was strongly opposed to his son succeeding him in that office, rejecting the logic of family succession. If and when the new Supreme Leader emerges from hiding, he should at most exert spiritual and moral guidance and allow the elected officials to carry out their duties through consultation in the SNSC. This major change will be more democratic, will create greater national unity, will calm the feelings of the opponents of the clerical regime and will put the country on the path of greater freedoms and national unity. I hope the Iranian authorities will seriously consider this option.
Photo of Versailles Palace by Hannah Falk on Unsplash
As far as Iran’s relations with its Persian Gulf neighbours are concerned, most of them have also realised that it is futile to rely on foreign powers that pursue their own interests to provide them lasting security from their own neighbours.
The GCC was formed after the victory of the Iranian revolution, mainly at the urging of Western powers, to increase the security of those small and weak states. However, instead of ensuring their security, it got them involved in the conflicts between Iran and Iraq and ultimately led to the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait and the involvement of the United States, which decided to establish many bases in those countries and which, instead of protecting them, made them more vulnerable. In addition to the six current GCC countries, both Iran and Iraq also share the Persian Gulf with their neighbours. The Persian Gulf states must add Iran and Iraq into the alliance by establishing a common security zone and a form of common market which will enhance both their collective security and economic development.
Finally, after 47 years of fruitless hostility culminating in the last two wars, both Iran and the United States must realise that, in the current multipolar world, they need each other and can achieve much more through cooperation and friendship than through mutual demonisation and hostility. US leaders must limit the malign influence of foreign lobbies which want to achieve their own goals by fostering Iran-US hostilities and truly put America first. Iranian leaders must put national interests above some outdated ideologies. The two countries can help themselves and the world through cooperation, rather than through conflict.
[1] The New York Times, Israel Thought It Could Spare Rebellion Inside Iran”, 22 Mar 2026
Thursday, June 18, 2026
A Brief Note on Consequences - The Catholic Thing
A Brief Note on Consequences - The Catholic Thing
https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2026/06/17/a-brief-note-on-consequences/?mc_cid=bb61f34d01&mc_eid=dfc2cd1c74
Fr. Bob's Reflection for the Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time - Guest Post
A little girl sits beneath a tree with her mother on a warm afternoon. Her mother has given her a glass of lemonade and two cookies. A neighbor girl, about the same age, walks over and quietly looks at the cookies.
There is plenty of lemonade to share, but no extra cookies. Hoping to encourage kindness, the mother gently asks, “Would you like to give Katie one of your cookies?”
“No,” little Angie replies quickly. “They’re mine.” And she repeats it again: “Mine.”
It becomes clear that no sharing will happen unless the mother steps in. For children, learning to share can be difficult. When a cookie is at stake, reasoning does not always go very far.
You can explain to a child, “Mommy gave you those cookies, and now Mommy wants you to share them.” But children do not always think that way.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells the Apostles, “Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.” The disciples had been given the power to heal the sick and cast out demons, and Jesus instructs them to use those gifts freely, without seeking reward or recognition.
What they received as a gift was meant to be shared as a gift.
The same is true for the little girl and the cookies. She did not buy them or bake them herself. They were given to her. It seems only right, then, that she might share one with someone who has none.
It may seem like a small lesson, but unless she learns to share, she risks remaining trapped in a very small world – one centered only on herself, her wants and her needs.
Most of us work hard for what we have. We earn our paychecks, and rightly so. That income provides food, shelter, transportation and security. We have worked for those things.
But my friends, consider this: even the ability to rise each morning, go to work and use our talents is itself a gift. Life is a gift.
I’ll share part of my own story. To become a priest, I completed four years of college and four years of graduate studies. I earned my degrees through hard work. But I did not create the physical health, mental ability or opportunities that made those studies possible. Those were gifts.
The Lord has blessed us with countless gifts that we often take for granted – sight, hearing, speech, freedom, opportunity and faith. Those of us living in the United States enjoy freedoms many people throughout the world can only dream about. We can worship freely, speak freely and shape our future. We have so much to be grateful for.
The question is: what do we do with these gifts?
Do we cling to them like the little girl holding tightly to her cookies, concerned only with ourselves, our comfort and our desires? Or do we recognize that the gifts God gives us are meant to be shared?
Famous author Mary Higgins Clark, who was a dear friend and generous benefactor of the Friars, once shared words with me that have always stayed close to my heart:
“To whom much is given, much is expected.”
My friends, do not live with closed hands or closed hearts. Instead, be open-hearted. Become people who give generously, recognizing how generously God has first given to you.
Yours in Christ,
Fr. Robert Warren, S.A.
Spiritual Director
[Salon] This defeat of U.S. imperial power is on par with the shame of the Vietnam War - Guest Post
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2026/06/18/trump-art-of-the-debacle/
6/18/26
This defeat of U.S. imperial power is on par with the shame of the Vietnam War.
Trump’s art of the debacle
When Trump launched his war against Iran on February 28, his maximalist demands included regime change, total surrender, no nuclear program, and no enriched uranium.
None of that has been achieved. Iran has emerged stronger, the U.S. looks weaker, its military assets in the region battered, and Tehran is calling the shots on what a final deal will look like, based on its unbowed terms.
Nearly four months on, the American president is hailing a peace deal with the Islamic Republic, but one where Tehran is writing the terms, not Washington. It’s a debacle for Trump, exposing the limits of U.S. global power like never before. Even the Western media is commenting on how Trump has come out as the loser.
Historians might note this epic failure as another inflexion point in the decline of the U.S. global empire.
As for the framework agreement announced last weekend, admittedly, anything that this president puts his name to has to be taken with a pinch of salt. This week at the G7 summit in France, Trump was threatening a return to bombing and all hell raining down on Iran if it didn’t comply with his supposed demands.
Who knows what the Israeli regime will do, too. Netanyahu is scorned for his association with Trump’s sell-out to Iran. The Israelis are continuing to bomb Lebanon in violation of the U.S.-Iran Memorandum of Understanding that will be formally signed in Geneva on Friday. Tehran has warned that Trump must rein in the Israelis to abide by a ceasefire covering Lebanon, or else all bets are off.
Will the Israelis bomb the incipient peace deal into oblivion to spare Netanyahu from going to jail over long-time corruption charges? Or will the Mossad blackmail Trump with files from the Epstein pedophile scandal to get back to bombing?
The peace negotiations that the Trump administration and Iran will engage in following the MoU signing are going to be fraught and long-drawn-out, liable to be crashed from several angles.
But at least, at this stage in the conflict, it is evident that Iran is the winner and Trump a monumental loser. Ironically, the initial deal was agreed on June 15, the same day that Trump hosted a cage fight spectacle on the White House lawn to celebrate his 80th birthday. If Trump were in a cage with Iran, he would emerge with his nose bloodied and a few teeth knocked out.
The text of the peace deal has been kept under wraps so far, but a draft obtained by U.S. outlets CNN and Bloomberg shows massive concessions forced on Washington. Out of a 14-point list, Iran is to have all historic U.S. sanctions removed, it will resume export of oil and oil products, and also avail of billions of dollars from released frozen assets.
Trump will crow about Iran forswearing any effort to acquire nuclear weapons. But that’s what Iran has always said, that its civilian nuclear program was peaceful, non-military, and legally entitled under international law. Again, Trump will crow about the Strait of Hormuz being reopened to oil shipping. But it was his war of aggression against Iran that closed off the Strait and 20 per cent of global oil supply. In short, Trump gains nothing despite the astronomical cost of his debacle.
Iran is not going to surrender its nuclear program. Its government and military are stronger than ever, and its 90 million people are more united than ever.
Iran’s defiance of U.S. aggression and threats of nuclear annihilation resulted in a strategic defeat of American power. The damage to the U.S. international image is incalculable as Washington’s allies find themselves betrayed by empty promises of protection.
Trump, who wrote an ego-trip book, Art of the Deal, about his supposed business genius as a real estate mogul, is shown by Iran to be a charlatan with no smarts, only bluster and bluff, arrogance and a big mouth, and an exemplar of the art of capitulation.
He blundered into a situation in which he was way out of his depth in terms of understanding and strategic thinking. His stupid arrogance was the only force driving his moves.
With American citizens appalled by the senseless war, the barefaced lies, the U-turns, the economic misery inflicted, Trump’s reckless and callous indifference to their opposition, and the mid-term elections looming, the spoiled-brat president realized he had no choice but to stop digging a hole and scrape his way out of it.
Let’s not forget, too, that over 7,000 people have been killed in the U.S. and Israeli aggression against Iran and Lebanon, including 168 Iranian schoolgirls murdered in a multiple airstrike on February 28.
Trump’s hawkish former national security advisor, John Bolton, got it right when he derided the deal with Iran from the U.S. point of view. He is scathing that Iran “played Trump like a fiddle”.
“That’s why they’ve got the deal that they want,” Bolton told Euronews.
The economic damage that Iran was inflicting on the U.S. from closing the entire Persian Gulf oil supply via the chokepoint Strait of Hormuz, totally under Iran’s control, was forcing Trump to his knees. Iran knew it had the ace card, and its courage, military firepower, and national unity to defy genocidal threats was a quad of aces.
Bolton said the White House’s reluctance to publish the text of the peace deal framework indicates that Trump knows he is a loser, despite the bravado and bluff.
“If it were a great deal, it would be out in public. And I think that tells you pretty much what you need to know,” remarked Bolton.
This defeat of U.S. imperial power is on par with the shame of the Vietnam War. Back then, Trump was a rich-boy draft dodger during the 1960s. Appropriately, perhaps, he finally experienced a similar Vietnam moment as a cheating president.
Wednesday, June 17, 2026
[Salon] Why the US and Israel Diverged on Iran Peace -
https://search.app/68TEhggueQEJhkz67
Why the US and Israel Diverged on Iran Peace
June 16, 2026
By: Leon Hadar
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The end of the Iran War closely resembles that of the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
History, as the great powers of the Middle East have never quite managed to learn, does not repeat itself exactly. Fifty-three years separate the October ceasefire that ended the Yom Kippur War and the rickety truce now descending on the Iran-Israel-America conflagration of 2025–2026. And yet, for anyone who has spent time studying the peculiar geometry of the US-Israel “special relationship,” the two endings feel eerily familiar, a reminder that Washington’s friendship, however genuine, has always come with asterisks written in very fine print.
Begin with the mechanics. In October 1973, with Israeli armor encircling Egypt’s Third Army on the western bank of the Suez Canal, and with Israeli Prime MinisterGolda Meir’s government poised to deliver a conclusive military blow, the Nixon administration did something that would become a recurring feature of American statecraft: it saved the enemy from total defeat and called the result a diplomatic triumph. Henry Kissinger, the supreme practitioner of what he might have called “constructive ambiguity” and what his critics called breathtaking cynicism, brokered a ceasefire that rescued Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s battered forces and handed Washington the enviable role of the region’s indispensable mediator.
Israel accepted, not because it wanted to, but because it had no real choice. The US airlift that had resupplied Israeli forces, Operation Nickel Grass, had also created a dependency. Those who supply the ammunition tend to acquire a veto over their beneficiary’s operations.
Jump forward five decades. In June 2025, after 12 days of Israeli and American airstrikes that targeted Iran’s nuclear facilities and military infrastructure, President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire, publicly, on social media, with characteristic flourish, before Jerusalem had fully signed on. Washington, having achieved its core objective of degrading Iran’s nuclear program, was satisfied. Israel, which had its own list of targets yet to be struck, was told, in effect, “enough”. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government complied, albeit with visible reluctance, as it would again when the conflict reignited in February 2026 and another ceasefire was eventually imposed through Pakistani mediation in April.
The pattern is so consistent it might as well be doctrine. America intervenes, America decides when the fighting stops, and Israel, the nominal partner, discovers that the “special relationship” has a hierarchy that becomes most visible precisely at the moment of victory.
The differences between 1973 and 2025–2026 are real and should not be elided. In 1973, Israel was attacked; the United States rushed arms to prevent its defeat. In 2025–2026, it was Israel and the United States that struck first, a joint operation against Iranian nuclear sites that both governments had been contemplating, in various forms, for the better part of two decades. The adversaries also differ in kind: Sadat’s Egypt was a Soviet-aligned state with a conventional-warfare army; the Islamic Republic of Iran, in its weakened post-October 7 condition, was a regional hegemon whose proxies Israel had systematically dismantled in the preceding years.
Yet the underlying geometry of the US-Israel relationship remains stubbornly unchanged. In both cases, Washington found itself in the uncomfortable position of having to manage not only the enemy but also its ally. In both cases, the United States discovered that Israel’s strategic objectives and America’s, so neatly aligned in the heat of crisis, begin to diverge the moment the endgame comes into focus.
Kissinger, in his unsentimental way, understood this perfectly in 1973. He wanted to use Israel’s battlefield success as leverage, not as a conclusion. A destroyed Egyptian Third Army would have been a humiliation that hardened Arab opinion for a generation; a rescued Egypt, grateful for American intervention, might be peeled away from Moscow and brought into Washington’s orbit. Israel’s victory opened the Arab world to American diplomacy.
Trump’s calculus, characteristically less articulated but no less real, followed a similar logic. Having struck Iran’s nuclear facilities in 2025, he wanted an Iran chastened but not destroyed. Similarly, in 2026, after it became clear that the Islamic Republic would not collapse after the targeted killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Trump wanted an Iran that could eventually sign an agreement, reopen the Strait of Hormuz, and allow the president to declare a historic deal. A maximalist Israeli campaign that continued to aim for toppling the Iranian regime risked generating exactly the kind of chaos, a power vacuum, regional escalation, a nuclear program dispersed into unknown hands, that Washington had gone to war to prevent.
Hence the pattern, repeated across both conflicts and over five decades: America provides the strategic umbrella, absorbs the costs of regional entanglement, and then insists on shaping the outcome in accordance with its own interests, which are not identical to Israel’s, however much the two governments prefer to pretend otherwise.
The aftermath of the Yom Kippur War is remembered, with the benefit of hindsight, as a qualified Israeli victory that paradoxically opened the door to peace. The 1979 Camp David Accords, arguably the most consequential diplomatic achievement in the region’s modern history, grew directly from the soil tilled by Kissinger’s post-1973 shuttle diplomacy. Egypt left the Soviet orbit, signed a separate peace with Israel, and the Arab coalition that had threatened Israel’s existence fractured irreparably.
But for Israel in late 1973, none of this was visible. What was visible was the shock of an intelligence failure that had nearly proved catastrophic, the death of nearly 2,700 soldiers, a society shaken to its core, and a sense, troubling and not entirely irrational, that even the United States, its patron and arms supplier, had kept it on a leash during the critical final hours.
The aftermath of the 2025–2026 conflict is likely to present its own ambiguous ledger. Iran’s nuclear program has been set back by months, according to some American intelligence assessments, potentially longer if the strikes proved as effective as claimed. The regime survived the decapitation strikes, appointing Mojtaba Khamenei as supreme leader and continuing to resist. The disruption in the Strait of Hormuz sent ripple effects through global energy markets. And Israel, having fought across multiple fronts, Gaza, Lebanon, and now Iran, is exhausted.
What the 2026 ceasefire negotiations have revealed, in the fragile memorandum of understanding announced by mediators, is that the fundamental questions remain unresolved: Iran’s nuclear program, its ballistic missile arsenal, and the reconstruction of its military capacity. After 1973, the guns have stopped, but the underlying conflict has not been concluded, merely deferred, at considerable human and economic cost, to the next administration or the next crisis.
Observers on both sides of the American debate will draw their preferred lessons. Those inclined to see the US-Israel relationship through a sentimental lens will emphasize the partnership—the airlift in 1973, the joint strikes in 2025, the diplomatic cover provided across both conflicts. Those inclined toward a more realist accounting will note what the historical record makes unmistakable: when American and Israeli objectives diverge, it is Israel that is asked to defer.
This is not necessarily a betrayal, nor is it inexplicable. A great power with global commitments to manage, energy markets to stabilize, alliance structures to maintain, and domestic politics to navigate cannot simply subcontract its foreign policy to a smaller ally with existential stakes and a different time horizon. Kissinger understood this, even if he said so more tactfully in public than he did in private. Trump, whose transactionalism cuts through the diplomatic underbrush with the subtlety of a Caterpillar D9, has made the same calculation in his own idiom.
The question for Israel, the question that Israeli strategists and politicians have been debating in earnest since 1973, is what to make of a patron whose support is indispensable and whose constraints are inescapable. The answer, available to Israeli leaders willing to look squarely at the record, is that the special relationship is real but bounded; that American power can save Israel from its worst dangers but cannot be counted on to let Israel finish every fight on its own terms; and that the morning after every American-brokered ceasefire will require Israel to rebuild its deterrence, reconstitute its alliances, and prepare for the next round that the ceasefire did not prevent, merely postpone.
The Middle East that greeted the Yom Kippur War ceasefire in October 1973 was reorganizing itself for a long transition, one that produced, eventually, a cold but durable peace between Israel and Egypt, the hollowing out of pan-Arabism as an ideological force, and the eventual emergence of Iran as the region’s principal disruptive power. It is not entirely fanciful to wonder whether the 2026 ceasefire might similarly set in motion a long, painful transition, one whose endpoint no one can yet discern, but which will likely look quite different from the maximalist visions advanced by either Netanyahu or Trump during the heat of the campaign.
In the meantime, Israel finds itself where it has so often found itself since 1948: militarily formidable, diplomatically dependent, and navigating the yawning gap between what it feels it needs to survive and what its indispensable ally is prepared to permit. The morning after the guns go quiet is always, for Jerusalem, a morning of reckoning—with what was achieved, what was left undone, and what price will be paid, years hence, for the terms that Washington imposed.
Fifty-three years on, the lesson of 1973 has not changed. It has merely been confirmed, again, at a higher cost and to a wider audience.
About the Author: Leon Hadar
Dr. Leon Hadar, a contributing editor with The National Interest, is a former senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI) and a former research fellow in foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute. He has taught international relations, Middle East politics, and communication at American University in Washington, DC, and the University of Maryland, College Park. A columnist and blogger with Haaretz (Israel) and Washington correspondent for The Business Times of Singapore, he is a former United Nations bureau chief for The Jerusalem Post.
Tuesday, June 16, 2026
[Salon] Realpolitik Triumphs — For Now
https://leonhadar.substack.com/p/trumps-iran-deal?utm_source=
Trump’s Iran Deal
Realpolitik Triumphs — For Now
Leon Hadar 6/16/26
The Art of the Deal Meets the Art of the Possible in the Persian Gulf
Washington has a habit of dressing up its foreign policy in the language of moral purpose. Presidents invoke democracy, human rights, and the rules-based international order as if they were divine mandates rather than rhetorical conveniences. So there is something almost refreshing — and certainly clarifying — about watching the Trump administration conclude a deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran that is unapologetically transactional, stripped of Wilsonian pretense, and justified almost entirely on the grounds of what it delivers for American interests.
The agreement announced on June 14 — confirmed by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who served as mediator — commits both sides to an immediate and permanent end to military operations, with the Strait of Hormuz set to reopen upon the formal signing in Switzerland. The details remain to be filled in, with sixty days of follow-on negotiations expected to address sanctions relief and Iran’s nuclear program.
Critics on the left will complain that Trump bombed his way to a negotiating table he could have reached diplomatically. Critics on the neoconservative right will complain that he stopped short of regime change. Both critiques contain a grain of truth. Neither quite captures what actually happened.
What happened, stripped of the spin, is a classic exercise in coercive diplomacy — the application of military force not as an end in itself, but as a means of altering the strategic calculus of an adversary. U.S. and Israeli strikes in 2025 targeted Fordow and Isfahan, significantly setting back Iran’s nuclear program, while the subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz disrupted global trade and sent shockwaves through energy markets. Both sides absorbed costs they could not indefinitely sustain. A deal became rational.
This is realpolitik in its most classical form — not Kissingerian elegance, but the rougher American variant that Nixon might have recognized: leverage applied, concessions extracted, handshakes exchanged, ideology parked at the door. Whatever one thinks of the means, the logic is coherent in a way that the Bush-era “axis of evil” framework never was. That framework demanded transformation; this one demands compliance.
The analogy that comes to mind is not Munich — the inevitable rhetorical grenade that hawks will lob — but rather Nixon’s opening to China. That too was a deal with a regime that Washington had spent decades demonizing. That too was denounced by ideological purists. And that too reflected a hardheaded assessment that the alternatives were worse. One need not celebrate the Islamic Republic to acknowledge that a negotiated settlement of a conflict that was disrupting one-fifth of the world’s oil supply, killing thousands, and straining American alliances across the region is preferable to its continuation.
That said, the realist in me reaches for the appropriate caution. Neither side has shared the exact terms of the deal, and whether it resolves major differences over Iran’s nuclear and missile programs, the Strait of Hormuz, and Israel’s wars with Iranian proxies remains to be seen. The Iranian side has shown considerable skill over decades at signing agreements, banking the concessions, and revisiting compliance at moments of convenience. The Trump administration, for its part, has shown that it prizes announcements over implementation — the signing ceremony in Geneva will be theatrical, whatever the substance.
And then there is Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has said Israel is not a party to the negotiated deal, while stating that he and Trump are in “full agreement” that Iran must not be permitted to obtain nuclear weapons — a formulation that manages simultaneously to endorse the goal and distance itself from the method. The Israelis, who wanted a more comprehensive dismantlement of Iranian power, are reported to view the deal in its current form as a deep disappointment. This matters. A deal that leaves Israel feeling strategically exposed creates its own set of pressures on the durability of any arrangement.
The broader regional architecture also remains unsettled. Iran’s network of proxies — battered by years of Israeli strikes, weakened by the fall of Assad in Damascus, and stressed by the events of the past months — has not been dissolved by this agreement. The realist knows that power vacuums invite filling.
None of this is reason to condemn the deal. It is reason to be clear-eyed about what it is and what it is not. It is a ceasefire, not a peace. It is a memorandum of understanding, not a strategic settlement. It is a beginning of a negotiation, not the end of one.
But sometimes a ceasefire is precisely what the moment requires. The alternative — continued fighting, a closed strait, spiraling energy prices, and the ever-present risk of escalation into something far larger — was not a serious strategic option for a United States that still has other theaters to manage, an economy to tend to, and a China challenge that dwarfs anything Tehran can muster.
Trump’s foreign policy critics have long accused him of having no strategy, only tactics. On Iran, there is something that at least rhymes with strategy: maximum pressure to compel maximum concessions, then a deal when one becomes available. Whether the follow-on negotiations produce durable arrangements on the nuclear question and sanctions relief will determine whether this goes down as a genuine strategic achievement or merely a very loud pause.
The Washington foreign policy establishment — wedded to its own form of ideological rigidity, whether neoconservative or liberal internationalist — will struggle to credit this administration with any genuine accomplishment. That is its own form of motivated reasoning. Realpolitik, practiced competently, does not require ideological consistency. It requires a clear view of interests, an accurate assessment of power, and the flexibility to take a deal when one is on the table.
Whether Trump has those qualities in adequate measure is, as always, a genuinely open question.
Monday, June 15, 2026
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[Salon] Israel’s Counter-Hamas Proxies - ArabDigest.org
Israel’s Counter-Hamas Proxies
Summary: Israel has historically utilised a strategy of politicide in the Gaza Strip by backing proxy collaborator militias to fragment Palestinian society and attempt to establish a postwar governing alternative to Hamas. Despite receiving Israeli arms and salaries and international validation these criminal gangs while serving Israel have betrayed Gazans trapped in a shrinking enclave.
Recent intelligence developments have cast a spotlight on the behind-the-scenes engineering of postwar Palestinian governance in the Gaza Strip. Shin Bet chief David Zini recently met with exiled former Gaza security chief Mohammed Dahlan in the United Arab Emirates, highlighting secret discussions regarding the enclave’s future leadership. Dahlan, a former head of the PA’s Preventive Security Force and a fierce critic of both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, lives in Abu Dhabi and is frequently floated by Israeli and international officials as a prime candidate to oversee a transitional technocratic government in postwar Gaza. He is described as a close confidante of UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed.
The meeting aptly illustrates a structural paradigm of conflict management deeply embedded in Israeli handling of Palestine. Since its early political formation, Israel has consistently sought to deprive Palestinians of national legitimacy and erode their identity through a policy of politicide. In order to infiltrate Palestinian society and distort its collective will, a central Israeli strategy has been the recruitment of rogue groups operating outside the national consensus. These client actors are tasked with carrying out destabilising activities to undermine Palestinian liberation from within, a recurring pattern which reflects the long-standing Zionist doctrine of fragmenting the population, neutralising resistance capabilities and obstructing national unity.
The charge of collaboration has long functioned as a potent political weapon between rival Palestinian factions. The modern “collaborator” charge first emerged textually during the May 1983 campus clashes at the Islamic University of Gaza between the Islamist Islamic Block and pro-PLO Fatah students. Following a violent brawl, the PLO’s newspaper of record, Al-Fajr, explicitly accused the rising Islamic movement of acting as a “collaborating force” with occupation authorities.
This accusation transitioned into the popular sphere during university courtyard debates in 1985. Then, Yahya Sinwar representing the Islamic Block and Mohammed Dahlan representing Fatah routinely squared off. Dahlan famously popularised the collaborator accusation against the Islamists during these debates, cementing a bitter personal, political and ideological rivalry that would continuously shape Palestinian internal security discourse for the next four decades.
Yahya Sinwar who went on to become a senior Hamas leader and was killed by the IDF in 2024 had a deep preoccupation with informants which found expression in his 2004 semi-autobiographical novel, The Thorn and the Carnation, written while serving multiple life sentences in an Israeli prison. The text closely mirrors his real-life role co-founding Hamas' internal security wing, al-Majd, established explicitly to hunt down traitors. Through the character Ibrahim, a literary alter-ego for Sinwar himself, the novel outlines exactly how collaborators are perceived, entrapped and systematically punished.
In the novel, collaboration is portrayed as profound moral, religious, and social rot that destroys society from within. Sinwar stresses that Shin Bet relies heavily on internal treason to conduct successful Israeli assassinations, sudden raids and arrests. The narrative shows how occupation forces systematically exploit human vulnerabilities such as financial desperation, drug addiction, blackmail or the need for medical permits to coerce individuals into espionage.
The novel positions the tracking and liquidation of traitors as a sanctified duty required for collective survival. The narrative outlines a strict process: meticulous surveillance to gather undeniable proof, followed by abduction and intense interrogation to extract detailed confessions regarding handlers and compromised information.
Public execution of traitors by Hamas in the Gaza Strip
At the outset of the Gaza genocide in 2023, the old Israeli doctrine of recruiting surrogate internal actors re-emerged as a formal military strategy. The then defence minister Yoav Gallant proposed utilising local militias and clans as a governing alternative to Hamas. Following initial difficulties, the plan moved through the Knesset’s secret committees until Shin Bet chief Ronen Bar reformulated it into an operational plan. Approved by Netanyahu and top military officials, it launched as a pilot model with a small cell in Rafah designed for gradual expansion.
To foster these client groups, the colonising state engineered supportive conditions by launching incitement campaigns against the resistance and exploiting wartime starvation to encourage public unrest. This manifested in protests in Deir al-Balah and Khan Yunis calling for an end to the war, the release of captives and the removal of Hamas. Zionist agents quickly mobilised these spontaneous actions into socio-economic protests under the banner “We want to live,” peaking in northern Gaza in March 2025 before spreading widely.
Out of this manufactured landscape, four primary collaborator militias emerged under direct Israeli patronage:
First, “The Popular Forces,” initially led by Yasir Abu Shabab and later by Ghassan al-Dahini. Abu Shabab, a Tarabin clan member previously jailed for theft and drug offences, was released following an Israeli attack on a Hamas prison at the outset of the conflict. Despite being illiterate, he “authored” an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal that claimed his group had secured territory free from Hamas and called for international recognition. UN and Sky News reports exposed his group for coordinating with the Israeli military, extorting protection fees and systematically looting aid convoys along “Looters’ Alley”. Following an expanded circle of support, Trump’s senior advisor Jared Kushner even held direct discussions with Abu Shabab to evaluate using his forces to clear Hamas operatives out of the Rafah tunnels. Abu Shabab was killed on December 4, 2025, in a targeted Al-Qassam Brigades ambush, sparking public celebrations before al-Dahini assumed command under ongoing Israeli protection.
Second, the Counterterrorism Strike Force (CSF), led by 51-year-old Husam al-Astal, a former officer under Mohammed Dahlan. After assisting Mossad with a 2018 assassination in Malaysia, he was sentenced to death upon returning to Gaza but escaped prison during a 2024 airstrike. Operating 150 to 500 fighters just 700 metres from an Israeli outpost near Kizan al-Najjar, al-Astal coordinates directly with the occupation forces, pitches his “The New Gaza” project as a postwar alternative to Hamas, and coordinates with al-Dahini's Rafah militia.
Third, the Popular Defence Forces, formed in summer 2025 by Rami Hillis, a former Presidential Security Force employee. His 500-strong militia of Ramallah-paid PA employees operates in Shuja’iyyah and Tal al-Hawa under Israeli operational cover. Coordinating via the District Coordination Office and collaborating with Shin Bet, they conduct surveillance, target front-line resistance fighters, and abduct pro-resistance citizens to hand over to Israel.
Fourth, “The Popular Army,” launched in northern Gaza in September 2025 by Ashraf al-Mansi. Comprising several dozen armed individuals with criminal records, they claim control over Jabalia and Beit Hanoun. Al-Mansi faces active charges of running an espionage network for Israel and his militia has engaged in multiple post-ceasefire clashes with Hamas.
The operational tactics of these modern collaborator gangs rely heavily on exploitation and psychological leverage. A primary mechanism is the “luxury” marketing strategy, where gang leaders like Husam al-Astal explicitly flaunt prohibited foreign consumer goods such as chocolates, coffee and Seven-Up in propaganda videos to entice starving, desperate youth into joining their ranks, a tactic which earned al-Astal the popular public nickname “Abu Seven” or “Abu Sab'in”. Alongside this branding, these groups engage in massive aid theft to build localised power, drawing immense hatred from the general populace. Furthermore, security factions note that these gangs use civilians as human shields, distributing sweets and cigarettes east of the “yellow line” to scout Hamas positions, knowing the resistance will hesitate to shoot back into civilian crowds.
Official admissions confirm that Israel treats these criminal groups as a security asset. In May 2025, Netanyahu formally instructed the Civil Administration to distribute weapons to these gangs in southern Gaza, characterising the arming of the militias as a good step that saved soldiers’ lives. Haaretz documented that the military provides them with salaries and logistical support and integrates them into command-and-control software as if they were Israeli forces. This coordination expanded under a US-backed plan managed out of a Civil-Military Coordination Center in Kiryat Gat. Despite heavy institutional backing, numerous Israeli experts have criticised Israel’s reliance on client militias, calling it a doomed experiment that ignores bitter historical precedents such as the South Lebanon Army. Analysts like Michael Milshtein, Eitan Dangot, and various military officials argue these criminal gangs can never achieve ground superiority or substitute for a strategic, regionally coordinated governance framework. Haaretz commentator Jack Khoury underscored that leadership cannot be engineered from above, noting that Abu Shabab’s death exposed the vast gap between Zionist narratives and Gaza’s actual reality. Channel 14’s Omri Haim similarly stated that relying on local mercenaries is destined to fail against a deeply embedded resistance project.
Nevertheless, Israel continues this strategy with Kan reporting that the military is actively preparing further protection and withdrawal paths for these groups. The UN Security Council’s adoption of Resolution 2803 on November 18, 2025, introduced a new dynamic, though it remains unclear if its mandate to dismantle armed groups will be applied to these collaborator militias, given that US and Israeli officials continue to engage them to secure localised reconstruction efforts. Ultimately, the failure to establish these militias as a legitimate governing alternative only serves to highlight the resistance’s popularity, steadfastness and ongoing capacity to systematically dismantle Israel’s surrogate networks.
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