The Treaty of Versailles, signed on June 28, 1919 in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles, stipulated the conditions of German surrender in the Great War. This June 17, the Trump administration signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) through which it offers its conditional surrender to the regime. The attacks in Lebanon postponed the signing ceremony, scheduled for the Swiss mountain resort of Burgenstock, overlooking Lake Lucerne, a choice designed to prevent demonstrations capable of embarrassing both the White House and the military-theocratic dictatorship in Tehran.
The MoU symbolizes, in itself, Iranian triumph. Iran’s infrastructure has suffered devastating blows. But the regime that Trump promised to overthrow, and then assured that he would obtain an unconditional surrender, emerged from the conflict renewed and more radical, as an interlocutor of the greatest power in the world. Popular opposition was crushed – and the MoU prohibits US interference in the “internal affairs” of the Persian country, a commitment that guarantees full freedom for repression.
The US is obliged to the “permanent” cessation of the war, the withdrawal of its forces from the “proximities” of Iran within 30 days and the immediate release of Iranian oil exports. Negotiations for the final treaty have a period of 60 days, subject to extension. In exchange for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the American naval blockade has now been lifted. But, critically, the MoU allows for the possibility of Iran charging transit fees in Hormuz in the future.
The only supposed Iranian concession lies in the reaffirmation of its traditional rhetorical promise not to build nuclear weapons. However, the fate of highly enriched uranium and the nuclear program depends on final negotiations, which would also eliminate economic sanctions and generate a $300 billion “reconstruction plan” for Iran. Thus, the “war reparations” provided for in the Treaty of Versailles gain an illusionistic phrasing in the MoU.
Trump’s war goals included ending Iran’s missile program and ending Tehran’s support for so-called “arc of resistance” regional militias. None of this appears in the MoU – and, on the contrary, “war reparations” allow the Iranian regime to resume financing Hezbollah, Hamas and Iraqi Shiite militias. Through the hands of Trump, Iran gains the status of the main power of the , inevitable interlocutor of all states in the region.
Germany, defeated in the Great War, did not have the right to participate in the negotiations of the Treaty of Versailles. Israel was not invited to negotiate or sign the MoU. But the surrender document imposes an end to the war “on all fronts, including Lebanon”, in addition to guaranteeing Lebanese “territorial integrity”. Translation: the White House assumes the duty of immobilizing Israeli forces, reversing the offensive against Hezbollah. Netanyahu, the notorious absentee from Burgenstock, suffers a strategic failure adorned by personal humiliation.
Versailles, 1919, marked the end of the hegemony of the European imperial powers. Burgenstock, 2026, has everything to go down in history as a singular moment in the decline of US global influence. Let there be no talk of peace: now, as before, the silence of the guns is nothing more than a short parenthesis.
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