Israel quickly announced that it is off this boat and Iran has said in different ways that it has not yet entered there either. Oblivious to this, Donald Trump is already announcing that everything can be resolved in Europe
It was less than a day but it was enough to turn the war upside down twice. The world woke up to the prospect of a US ground invasion of Iran and will go to bed with an apparently imminent peace agreement, even if there are loose ends that continue to raise legitimate doubts.
After threatening to seize the important and strategic Iranian island of Kharg – seen in the cover image in a previous US offensive operation -, the President of the United States announced that a “grand agreement” was on the way, after the two parties reached a memorandum of understanding.
And the number of parts is the first big question. There are two, yes, and it was the Prime Minister of Israel who had the need to clarify this, in a statement in which he took the opportunity to praise Donald Trump, but also to emphasize that Tel Aviv was out.
If we believe what Benjamin Netanyahu says, Israel will be able to continue its offensive in Lebanon, probably the biggest irritant for Iran, which has already made it clear that the end of the war must mean the end of the entire war, including the departure of Israeli troops from the territories where Hezbollah still operates.
The other question on the table is how Iran actually views this announcement from Donald Trump. As is already customary, the Iranian media was quick to assure that there was still no white smoke for anything, and the president of the United States further deepened the doubt.
“What I understand is that the answer is yes,” he said after being asked whether Iran’s supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, was aware of the agreement.
Donald Trump thinks so, therefore, but he is not 100% sure, even though he mentioned again, already at a press conference at the White House, that there was a “very strong memorandum of understanding” that Iran accepted “conceptually”.
“They’re not going to have a nuclear weapon, they agreed to that – there won’t be, which is the whole point, a big part of the reason. They’re not just not going to have, they’re not going to buy, develop in any way, shape, or form, shape or build a nuclear weapon,” he reiterated, stressing that in Iran they want an agreement “as much or more than him.”
180 degree turn
And how did we get here? The president of the United States believes that he resorted to force, arguing that the threat made in the early hours of the morning was decisive in reaching an agreement.
Donald Trump promised to take the island of Kharg and even other oil infrastructure from Iran, which presupposed a land invasion and boots on the ground, something that the American president himself admitted might not be very popular.
Despite being small and lost in the middle of the Persian Gulf, this island is responsible for around 90% of all Iran’s oil exports. In practice, removing it from Iran would mean total suffocation of an already fragile economy.
“The United States will hit Iran (whose Navy, Air Force, radars, anti-aircraft and other forms of defense, together with offensive capabilities, are gone) very hard tonight”, announced Donald Trump on social media, also promising to take over Iran’s oil and natural gas market, as happened in Venezuela.
Pulling the ribbon ahead of the announcement of a memorandum of understanding with Iran, Donald Trump argued that it was this threat that motivated his opponent to sign an agreement. An agreement that, remember, Tehran continues to not confirm.
“They took a blow, a blow like few people could take, and they want to get the deal done much more than I do,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “They’ve been hit hard recently, as you know, and I don’t like having to do things this way, but I felt it was necessary.”
“Based on the fact that discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran have been taken to the highest level of Iranian leadership and approved, I, as President of the United States of America, have canceled the strikes and bombings scheduled against Iran tonight,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social account.
In one of the few public reactions, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps raised doubts about the full extent of the agreement, namely the “end points” mentioned by Donald Trump.
“In addition to Iranian officials not yet responding to Trump’s allegations, the notes show that since the start of the war, Trump has repeatedly made contradictory and inaccurate statements,” said that statement, stressing that a deal only fully exists when Iran says so.
The next few days will be decisive for us to understand the real dimension of all this information, especially because Donald Trump suggested that the signing of the agreement could happen this weekend, even saying that Europe could be the place where this will happen.
