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War On Iran: – Israel, And Trump Himself, Are Hindering Conflict Solution
The talks between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran as agreed upon in their Memorandum of Understanding are veering off course.
There are two major forces who are threatening to derail the agreement.
One is, very predictably, Israel which does its best to sabotage the talks. The MoU empathizes the end of fighting in Lebanon and the retreat of Israeli forces from Lebanese ground.
While Israel, after pressure from the U.S., had stopped fighting over the weekend its officials have stated that there will be no retreat of their forces. Today Israeli troops attacked Lebanese civilians who were clearing a road in Nabatieh. It then attacked the civil defense forces which tried to help those wounded during the first strike.
The U.S., Iran and the Qatari and Pakistani mediators had agreed over the weekend to install an observer group to prevent such incidents. Iran will demand that the U.S. intervene in the case. It will otherwise take its own measures which may end up to again block the Strait of Hormuz.
The second force which is disrupting the talks is the U.S. itself. The first clause of the MoU obligates both sides to refrain from threatening each other. While the talks on Saturday/Sunday were ongoing U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to kill the Iranian negotiators. This was of course bollocks but had to be taken seriously. The direct talks between the U.S. and Iranian delegations were immediately stopped. Less effective, indirect talks with the help of mediators from Qatar and Pakistan continued.
The Iran side said that the U.S. had agreed to release Iranian funds which had been held under sanctions. The U.S. also lifted, for 60 days, sanctions on the sales of Iranian oil. Both measures are mere openers – pre-conditions by Iran – for any further talk.
Now the U.S., through the president and Vice President Vance, makes claims that Iran had agreed to use the unfreezed money to buy U.S. agricultural products. They also claimed that Iran would invite the IAEA to inspect all of its nuclear programs.
Iran has rejected both points. The MoU states that Iran will be free to use its released money however it likes. It also states that no talks and agreements about the nuclear issues will take place before other conditions have been fulfilled.
The U.S. is thus falsely claiming points which are in direct contradiction to the agreement it had itself signed on to.
Currently the Strait of Hormuz is open for traffic that follows the directives Iran had issued for peaceful passages. The majority of ships that have passed during the last two days were Iranian tankers with Iranian oil and destinations in China. Little of other products have left the Persian Gulf as shipowners and insurances will not risk a passage unless they are sure that there will be no more hostilities.
With no fresh product in reasonable quantities coming out of other Gulf states than Iran the squeeze in the oil and liquefied gas market continues. There are three to six weeks left until global reserves run dry and until markets disrupt with serious consequences.
The clock is ticking for Donald Trump. He will have to rein in Israel. He will also have to stop himself from making threats and overbearing claims of U.S. successes with regards to Iran. He needs to do that immediately. Otherwise the U.S. and the global economy will suffer what Trump himself had called a catastrophe.
Iran, meanwhile, has all the time it needs to improve its global position. Its speaker of parliament has visited Oman to work on a common regulation for the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranian president is visiting Pakistan. The foreign minister in on his way to China. Iran is setting the diplomatic stage for its new dominant role in the Middle East.
Everyone watching the conflict has recognized that the U.S. has lost the war. Trump’s attempts to sell it as victory are endangering the MoU and a peaceful solution. In a week or so he may even try new escalations.
But with any new hostilities he will end up in a worse situation.
Marandi made an excellent summation to Nima today: “Iran’s dealing with Monsters.”They are the Outlaw US Empire and its Zionist genocidal buddy. The murders in Lebanon earlier today are par for the course for both. During the Q&A portion of Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs 12th Ambassadorial Roundtable on Ukraine and other issues, Lavrov was asked the following about the Iranian and Palestinian conflicts and the region generally:
Thank you Sergey Lavrov for the comprehensive information on your region and the Middle East. Yesterday, a ministerial meeting was successfully held in Jordan. We talked about the opening of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz and the end of the military operation, as well as about Qatar and other countries in the region. What do you think can be the regional and international contribution to ensuring the maintenance of this agreement, especially in light of the fact that the Jordan ministerial meeting stressed the importance of the defense of the Arab countries, including the Gulf countries?
To what extent can these peace agreements in the region create the prerequisites for achieving regional and international peace? In particular, can these agreements lay the foundation for a just and lasting peace for the Palestinians?
Lavrov’s answer was very long and comprehensive as usual. What follows are what IM are key portions:
Sergey Lavrov: This is a very important question. Of course, we are not just following the developments, but are taking an active position and stimulating the negotiation process in all our contacts.
It is unacceptable that there has been an attempt at direct aggression against the Islamic Republic of Iran by the United States and Israel. This was absolutely unprovoked, except for statements from Washington that it is necessary to stop the situation when, they say, Iran has been a hotbed of terrorism for 47 years.
We all understand that there are no facts here. It is well known that Iran and other countries in the region have their interests beyond their borders. Members of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf have interests on the African continent and in other parts of the world. Therefore, it is unfair to simply demand that one state cease any external relations, including in the context of the Palestinian conflict (as you know, this is a very serious and still unresolved problem, I will say a few words about this a little later).
Thank God that our American colleagues have realised the need for a diplomatic settlement. Probably, it was not easy, as some write, to step over yourself. The decision was made in disputes, but the policy of returning to peace prevailed. We actively support this and are ready to contribute in every possible way to negotiations between the United States and Iran.
We welcome Pakistan’s very useful, not always noticeable, but fruitful policy of organising mediation work together with Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt. The Quartet, whose meeting you mentioned, is an interesting new format. It was not the first time he had met. Its agreements, which are always known, are aimed at stimulating dialogue and creating conditions for reliable security….
Even before the current conflict, which began after the attack on Iran, similar initiatives to develop some kind of system of cooperation in the Gulf region were put forward by the People’s Republic of China. Recently, other countries, including Egyptians, have also shown interest in this. I heard that Saudi Arabia is interested in forming a regional model. For sure, each of these initiatives has its own nuances.
I think the main thing is that the architecture should be inclusive and open, so that it would allow discussing any concerns within this universal structure and trying to regulate them….
As for Palestine, I will say this: we should all be ashamed. Because the efforts that have been made for many years to remove Palestine from the priorities of the international community, unfortunately, are yielding results.…
I would like to note that President of Russia Vladimir Putin has officially addressed the US leadership, saying that of the Russian gold and foreign exchange reserves (several billion dollars) that have been illegally frozen in the United States, we are donating one billion for the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip as part of the implementation of this UN Security Council resolution. It will be a year soon, but we still have not received any answer. The question arises: are those promoting this plan even interested in obtaining resources for the reconstruction of Gaza, or are there plans to give the entire Strip to the creation of a “riviera”, as many often say?
If we consider the problem of Palestine, then we must not forget what is happening in the West Bank of the Jordan River, where everything is being done to ensure that there will never be any Palestinian state. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has officially said that this state will never exist. He speaks of a “Greater Israel” (some even mention “from the Nile to the Euphrates”), and the territory occupied by Israeli troops is expanding in Syria. This is an alarming situation….
Of course, here we rely primarily on the Palestinians themselves, on our Arab friends. This is their region. There are many problems and contradictions in this region. We are very interested in these contradictions being gradually resolved. We are ready to contribute. For a long time and not so long ago, we have been engaged in promoting the restoration of Palestinian unity. I heard that recently the Deputy Chairman of the Hamas Politburo, M. Abu Marzouq, again called for holding an event with the participation of all Palestinians. So far, everyone seems to be ready (as we understand it), but Fatah is not ready. This, of course, does not add optimism, because the tendency to rewrite UN decisions should be countered by some principled unified position. [My Emphasis]
Eventually, an official English transcript will become available as it’s still being constructed. The emphasis of the Roundtable was on the Ukraine conflict, and related NATO/EU actions but as noted above other topics were discussed. The centrality of Palestine was also discussed in the Marandi/Nima chat I noted at the outset.
My assessment agrees with that of most Barflies that the Zionists must be neutered for peace in West Asia to be attained, but for that to have a chance of occurring those abetting the Zionists must cease their activities, and that pertains to regional nations not just the Outlaw US Empire–Erdogan’s Turkey being the most important since it supplies critical energy resources that originate in Azerbaijan.
Posted by: karlof1 | Jun 23 2026 18:16 utc | 20
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2026/06/22/israel-picking-up-the-pieces-of-its-deep-seated-hubris/
Excerpt…
Will the signing of the MoU then indeed be something of an inflection point? It is too early to say, but one initial question must be: Has Trump’s volte face dealt an irreversible blow to Israel?
Lazar Berman, military correspondent of the Times of Israel, observes that “total victory” and its illusions are over –
“The post-October 7 wars, which came with expectations and promises of “total victory,” are over – as are their illusions. Palestinians are not going to leave Gaza. Hamas won’t disarm, nor will Hezbollah. Trump is not going to return to war in Iran, which can now threaten to withdraw from a deal to get Trump to stop any major Israeli operation against Hamas or Hezbollah …The Middle East has certainly changed”.
Trump’s goal, it now seems, is to reach an agreement with Iran – he apparently believes too, that the move will also serve Israel’s interests. This may, or may not, be realistic. For, as Aluf Benn writes in Haaretz, “the idea that Israel and Iran are capable of reconciliation after decades of hostility, which culminated in bombings and missile attacks last year, was never even discussed in Israel”.
It was this lacuna that gave rise to hubris and wishful thinking in the Israeli Establishment.
As leading Israeli commentator Nahum Barnea amplifies, it never even occurred to Israel that Iran might survive a U.S.-led onslaught –
“There probably wasn’t anyone from Military Intelligence, the National Security Council or the Mossad who raised at the meetings the possibility that the Iranian regime might survive and emerge stronger. Even if there were a few sceptics in the room, they held their tongue”.
In Israel, the sense of defeat is palpable.
What Trump now is likely angling for is more room for manoeuvre for his vision of peace in the Middle East. His kite-flying about Iran joining the Abraham Accords; that he would like to talk with Hizbullah, and his (even more absurd) comments to the effect that Jolani and Syria should ‘take care’ of Hizbullah in Lebanon, however, do lend support to Citrinowicz’s contention that for now, Trump entertains some (possibly implausible) broader vision of where U.S.-Iran relations might lead.
In this reconfigured Israeli strategic landscape, perhaps even the pusillanimous Europeans might begin some corrective action by insisting on a return to ancient understandings of war – in which decapitation strikes and multi-assassination campaigns of women and children lie outside of all civilised norms of war, let alone of human morality. Iranian negotiators insisted in the negotiations that any assassinations or killings would kill relations with the U.S. stone-dead.
The other key issue that flows from these events is the question – what will be the effect of the signing of the MoU on the complexion of U.S. polity? Will this prove to be a separate and strategic point of inflection? Will America as a whole start to detach from Israel?
Emphasis (bold) mine. And speaking of that thought in bold, if the Trump regime intends to faithfully abide by the terms of the MOU (yeah right, this is the USA we’re talking about) and “Israel” or the Zio-Israeli Jewish Supremacists in both wings of the Uniparty don’t succeed in quashing it*, then Trump, Vance and whoever else abandoned poor “Israel” had better have a staff of trustworthy food tasters, an extra large contingent of well vetted America-first Secret Service attendants and they should stop focusing so much on “Antifa” that they disrupt the real terror threat faced by the USA in the form of the “new 9/11” that certain prominent “Israelis” are openly saying (and then editing/deleting) us Americans “need.”
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jun 23 2026 23:22 utc | 70
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