Trump’s Attempt to End the Iran War Infuriates the Uniparty
By Ron Paul | June 22, 2026
Against the odds, the Memorandum of Understanding signed by the US and Iran appears to be holding, after threats and counter-threats. It may collapse, but it has survived a first round of talks between the two sides in Switzerland over the weekend.
President Trump started a war on Iran against all sober guidance and in violation of the US Constitution’s requirement that only Congress can declare war. There must be a reckoning for our elected leaders who violate their oath of office, the Constitution, and simple common sense.
However, what is more telling is the reaction when President Trump finally took the correct move and attempted to end the war. The neocons who had hailed him as a great leader – Levin, Bolton, Pompeo, etc. – suddenly turned against him when he turned against further escalation of the war.
Even Trump’s top funder, Miriam Adelson, attacked Trump in her newspaper Israel Hayom. “You could have been the greatest president of all, but you failed,” the newspaper wrote in an editorial.
Not much gratitude from the Israel-first crowd, even if the war was started to benefit Israel.
And more telling even than this was the reaction of the “opposition” party in Congress, the Democrats. They attacked him harder for ending – or at least pausing – the war more than for starting the war in the first place! Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) called the MOU a “capitulation.” Sen Chris Murphy (D-CT) called the MOU an “embarrassing document.” Sen. Amy Klobuchar falsely claimed that President Trump was paying Iran $300 billion to re-open Hormuz.
This is more evidence – as if any is needed – that our foreign policy is run by the “uniparty.” When it comes to wars, there is no Republican Party nor is there a Democratic Party. There is only the “yes!” party.
Congress remains silent in the run-up to war. Congress remains silent when the President launches a war. Congress even remains silent when the war begins going badly. It is only on those rare occasions that a president takes steps to correct his mistake that Congress finds its voice.
Yes, there is plenty to criticize. After weekend talks, the US side, led by Vice President JD Vance, is celebrating as a “breakthrough” that the Strait of Hormuz is open again and that Iran has reportedly agreed to the return of UN inspectors. But the Strait was open before this war and UN inspectors were in Iran before President Trump unilaterally pulled out of the JCPOA “Iran Deal” in his first term.
The only difference now is that we burned through likely several hundred billion dollars, we lost dozens of aircraft and other military equipment, and we likely lost more service members than the Pentagon is admitting.
It is a reminder of why the Founders intended to make sure that any war must be declared by the people’s Representatives before the first bullet is shot: it should be very hard to launch wars.
Nevertheless, those who are truly against the wars should, in my opinion, hold their fire for the time being in hope that a lasting resolution can be found. The President Is being attacked from all sides by the war party. Now may not be the best time for the peace party to join in.
IRAN WALKS OUT ON PEACE DEAL DUE TO TRUMP’S THREATS – w/ Prof. Seyed Mohammad Marandi
Mario Nawfal | June 21, 2026
Terms of US capitulation to Iran presage new era for the region

By Samuel Geddes | Al Mayadeen | June 21, 2026
After a week where it seemed the US-“Israel” and Iran were inevitably sliding back into open war, President Trump finally decided to cut his losses and snatch defeat from the jaws of catastrophe. The terms of his submission to Iran, aptly signed in the Palace of Versailles, enter the historical record as among the most humiliating articles of surrender ever accepted, not least by a supposed global hegemon.
On the sidelines of the G7 summit in Switzerland, no less than Trump himself admitted that his decision to accede to almost all of Iran’s demands was meant to forestall an imminent economic depression triggered by the Hormuz blockade. Still more jarringly, all of the many systemic concessions given by Washington; the ending of the US naval blockade, the immediate suspension of US sanctions against Tehran, the handing over of Iran’s sovereign assets frozen around the world, the muzzling of “Israel” from continuing its pyromaniacal rampage of the last three years- all of this was given by Washington in exchange for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz (open before the war) and Iran’s willingness to negotiate the status of its nuclear program later on.
Of the agreed conditions, the most jaw-dropping article, which many found exceedingly difficult to take seriously, was the establishment of a fund for the reconstruction and economic development of Iran, amounting to $300 billion. The most up-to-date estimates of the damages caused to the Iranian economy by the US-Israeli aggression totaled $270 billion, a figure likely to be preliminary rather than final. Alongside this eye-watering sum, Tehran has already begun exporting its energy and petrochemical products free from the constraints of US primary and secondary sanctions, something almost certain to become permanent, while its $100 to $150 billions of international assets will bring in an added infusion of economic activity. Added to this the implicit acceptance – or at least not rejection – of Tehran’s right to levy charges on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz (though not for 60 days) and the Islamic Republic emerges from this war the overwhelming beneficiary of its consequences, achieving in four months of war what five decades of intermittent and painstaking diplomacy could not.
The $300 billion sum functions in effect as an indemnity, a tribute extracted from the treasury of the defeated party in exchange for the granting of peace. Scores of Roman emperors knew full well the significance of the principle, as they had to repeatedly perform this ritual of humiliation before the Iranians countless times over the course of their seven-century-long rivalry in the Late Ancient Period.
In both of their efforts to contain the humiliation of this clause, Trump and his deputy, JD Vance, have been at pains to emphasize that Washington will not be paying any of its own funds to the Iranians for this purpose. In his Thursday press conference, the Vice-President identified that regional states – the Gulf Cooperation Council, which he repeatedly labelled the “Gulf Coast Coalition” – would be “free” to invest in the Iranian economy if they wished to.
This is, and would be, a monumental shift for Washington to even countenance such an arrangement. Since 1979, the Islamic Republic has specifically threatened the mechanism through which the US (and to a lesser extent European) economy has siphoned off the wealth of the Arab world and the capital of the Global South, the infamous ‘petro-dollar cycle’. These states exist specifically for the purpose of recycling their energy revenues into the Western economy through arms deals, acquisitions, and investments in Western financial institutions. Trump himself has personified this process more completely than any other president.
That Trump would give his signature, willingly or otherwise, to the GCC pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into the Iranian economy to reconstruct and repair what he destroyed, obviously is demonstrative of which side is the victor in this war. It also signals a shift in the regional balance of power that has truly global ramifications.
If the flow of petro-revenues illustrates the relative strength of the recipient economy, then it shows the war set in motion an increase in Iranian power that grants it competing access to the region’s vast surplus revenues – that is competing with the US.
Even if the process started by the signing of the MoU collapses and the $300 billion fund doesn’t materialize, Tehran’s capacity to challenge – and potentially displace the US as the hegemon of the Persian Gulf, is now a thinkable scenario.
As the consequences of this war continue to unfold and the true increase in the Islamic Republic’s relative power becomes more apparent, it will begin to exert a gravitational pull that makes security under its umbrella a more realistic proposition to the GCC states than the empty promise of American Patriot batteries or fantasies of normalization with “Israel.”
Securing Peace with Iran Compels Trump to Divorce Israel
Israel’s goals of territorial expansion conflict with the goals of the US president
By Harrison Berger | The American Conservative | June 19, 2026
After President Donald Trump signed a preliminary Iran peace deal on Wednesday, Israel’s occupation and bombing of Lebanon presents the central obstacle to a final agreement and lasting peace. Securing and upholding the final peace deal will require the kind of confrontation with Israel that Trump has avoided for most of his presidency, given Iran’s leverage over the Strait of Hormuz and global energy flows.
Iran has insisted that the ceasefire and now the framework peace deal cover the entire regional war and thus require that Israel end its occupation of southern Lebanon. Iran’s Supreme National Security Council declared Monday that under the framework deal, called a memorandum of understanding, “war and military operations on all fronts—including immediately ending the Lebanon front tonight and permanently—will conclude.”
That demand stems directly from the “long-term security guarantees” Tehran has invoked across its public statements since the beginning of the conflict. For those guarantees to mean anything, Tehran needs Trump to rein in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and ensure that Israel does not launch another surprise attack against Iran. The only way Washington can demonstrate that commitment is to pressure Israel now, in Lebanon. As Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute has argued, binding Israel to a ceasefire is a “test of America’s willingness, and its ability, to restrain its closest regional ally.”
Iran is right to doubt that Washington will exert that kind of pressure over Israel. After Israel’s latest bombing of Beirut’s southern suburbs, Iran’s Speaker of Parliament Mohammad Ghalibaf wrote that the incursion into Dahiyeh “has once again shown that America either lacks the will to fulfill its commitments or the ability to do so.” Recognizing that Israel’s violent quest to grab territory in Lebanon could only be accomplished with U.S. approval, Iran’s leading negotiator declared that “the game of bad cop and good cop is outdated.”
Up until that point, the White House had seemed to use Axios and other friendly outlets to give Iran the impression that it was pressuring Israel, even as it kept giving its protectorate in the Middle East the green light to occupy its northern neighbor. Indeed, while American audiences heard from the Axios reporter Barak Ravid that Washington was “furious” over the Lebanon strikes, Israeli audiences heard the opposite.
Miriam Adelson’s Israel Hayom newspaper reported that the United States and Israel were in fact “fully coordinated, both on the strikes in Dahiyeh in Beirut and on the Israeli response to the missile fire from Iran,” and that Secretary of State Marco Rubio in particular played a “significant role” in getting Trump to back Israel’s retaliatory strikes. The Israeli operation, the paper said, was “fully coordinated with CENTCOM, even though the Americans did not strike themselves.” The munitions used by the Israelis in Lebanon are further proof of U.S. involvement, with Courtney Bonneau, the American-Dutch journalist reporting from southern Lebanon, recently telling The American Conservative that the waste left by Israel’s demolition and bombing campaign is recognizably U.S.-made.
Trump wants to have it both ways. The political costs of the war are piling up and he wants an exit, but an exit requires confronting Israel and the lobby over Lebanon, and that is a political conflict he has avoided fighting directly even as he has criticized Netanyahu in recent weeks.
Israel is betting he will continue to avoid it. Shortly after a deal was announced, Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz said that Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon would continue, and that it planned to stay “indefinitely” in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza. Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich likewise announced on Tuesday that “there will be no withdrawal from Lebanon, neither by Friday nor afterward. We will remain in south Lebanon and strengthen our presence there,” while National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said Monday that Israel is not bound by any agreement.
Though Israeli leaders insist they are carefully fighting “Hezbollah,” the death toll of at least 3,826 Lebanese civilians killed by Israeli attacks reveals that to be merely a pretext. Trump, though he has not skipped any payment when it comes to funding the conflict, admitted as much on Tuesday at the G7 Summit, telling reporters that Israel “does not have to knock down an apartment house every time [it’s] looking for somebody. There are a lot of people in those apartment houses and they’re not all Hezbollah.”
And though Israel invokes Hezbollah as its excuse for military action, there is little reason to believe the IDF’s occupation would end even if Hezbollah laid down its arms. In their public statements, Israeli officials have expressed interest in territorial expansion for its own sake and, increasingly, in the Judaification of Lebanese land through settlements—an idea Jewish Currents describes as “once fringe” but now backed by “an organized movement with broad governmental and public support.” Twenty members of Israel’s Knesset wrote to the cabinet in April urging “occupation and full control” of southern Lebanon alongside the “complete displacement” of its population, while a poll conducted by Direct Polls for i24NEWS found that 62 percent of Israelis favor occupying everything south of the Litani River.
Israeli occupation of Lebanon, like its ethnic cleansing campaigns in Gaza and the West Bank, works directly against American interests, in this case stopping a war that has wrecked the global economy. Washington has all the necessary tools to put a stop to this, yet has simply declined to use them. As Joe Kent, the administration’s former head of the National Counterterrorism Center and one of the most prominent America First critics of the war argued on X, “We can strengthen our chances of this deal holding by cutting all military/intel assistance to Israel,” who “took every opportunity to tank this deal & will likely do so again unless we take action,” adding that in order for a deal to hold, we must “take away every factor that we can control that could force us back into the war on Israel or Iran’s terms. Set all conditions that we can control in our favor.”
Though once unthinkable, Trump in recent days has shifted closer toward this America First position and away from the Israel First mindset that led to war with Iran. With Iran insisting any peace deal must cover “all fronts,” including Lebanon, and with the Israelis fully committed to the Greater Israel project, cutting off Israel is now the minimum price of the complete exit from the conflict that Trump says he wants.
Harrison Berger is a correspondent at The American Conservative. He has contributed to Drop Site News, The Nation, and Responsible Statecraft. Previously, he was a researcher and producer for System Update with Glenn Greenwald. His work focuses on civil liberties and U.S. foreign policy. He studied Political Science and Russian Studies at Union College (NY).
Iran rules out IAEA inspections of war-damaged nuclear sites
Press TV – June 19, 2026
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman has dismissed reports claiming that the Islamic Republic will invite the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect its nuclear sites damaged in two rounds of US-Israeli aggression.
Referring to the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed by Iran and the US with the aim of ending the war on Thursday, Esmaeil Baghaei told reporters on Friday that the document’s clause 8 stipulates that negotiations on the nuclear issue will be held within a period of 60 days.
“Of course, this will require the fulfillment of the prerequisites for starting negotiations in accordance with clause 13,” he emphasized.
Baghaei stressed that, according to clause 9 of the MoU, the current status of Iran’s nuclear program will be maintained during the 60-day period, and accordingly, inspections of facilities such as Bushehr, which have been conducted so far, will continue.
He added that inspections of facilities to which the IAEA’s access was suspended due to the US-Israeli aggression hinge on the process of negotiations and their outcome.
His remarks come as US President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, claimed that Iran will invite the IAEA to inspect its nuclear facilities and begin work on identifying and disclosing the locations of enriched materials possessed by Tehran.
This came during a special briefing by Witkoff to congressional leaders and members of the committees concerned with national security.
The MoU, signed remotely by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and US President Donald Trump, calls for a permanent end to hostilities across all fronts, the removal of the US naval blockade, the restoration of commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz within 30 days, a reconstruction plan worth at least $300 billion, and the lifting of US sanctions.
Under the MoU, the two sides have entered a 60-day negotiation period, with the goal of reaching a comprehensive final agreement.
The agreement followed an unprovoked US-Israeli war of terrorism against Iran that began in late February.
Iran Beat Back The Greater Israel Project
By Justin K.P. | The Dissident | June 18, 2026
Donald Trump has officially signed the memorandum of understanding with Iran in the Palace of Versailles in France, and Israel and its American lobbyists are having a meltdown.
This is because the war with Iran, according to Israel and its neoconservative allies in the U.S., was indeed to be the linchpin for the Greater Israel Project, and the final phase of the Clean Break plan drawn up by Israel and the Bush administration.
For context, professor Jeffery Sachs explained :
In 1996, Netanyahu and his American advisors devised a “Clean Break” strategy. They advocated that Israel would not withdraw from the Palestinian lands captured in the 1967 war in exchange for regional peace. Instead, Israel would reshape the Middle East to its liking. Crucially, the strategy envisioned the US as the main force to achieve these aims—waging wars in the region to dismantle governments opposed to Israel’s dominance over Palestine. The US was called upon to fight wars on Israel’s behalf.
The Clean Break strategy was effectively carried out by the US and Israel after 9/11. As NATO Supreme Commander General Wesley Clark revealed, soon after 9/11, the US planned to “attack and destroy the governments in seven countries in five years—starting with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Iran.”
The first of the wars, in early 2003, was to topple the Iraqi government. Plans for further wars were delayed as the US became mired in Iraq. Still, the US supported Sudan’s split in 2005, Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 2006, and Ethiopia’s incursion into Somalia that same year. In 2011, the Obama administration launched CIA operation Timber Sycamore against Syria and, with the UK and France, overthrew Libya’s government through a 2011 bombing campaign. Today, these countries lie in ruins, and many are now embroiled in civil wars.
Netanyahu was a cheerleader of these wars of choice–either in public or behind the scenes–together with his neocon allies in the U.S. Government including Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Victoria Nuland, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Richard Perle, Elliott Abrams, and others.
As he explained, war with Iran was intended to be the final phase of this roadmap to Greater Israel. “In September 2023, Netanyahu presented at the UN General Assembly a map of the ‘New Middle East’ completely erasing a Palestinian state. In September 2024, he elaborated on this plan by showing two maps: one part of the Middle East a ‘blessing,’ and the other–including Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Iran–a curse, as he advocated regime change in the latter countries. Israel’s war on Iran is the final move in a decades-old strategy. We are witnessing the culmination of decades of extremist Zionist manipulation of US foreign policy.”
The Zionists and Neo-Cons believed that by destroying Iran, it would cut off support to resistance groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah and Ansar Allah, destroy the axis of resistance and create an American/Israeli dominated Middle East, and Israeli expansion into Gaza, the West Bank, Syria and Lebanon.
Daniel Levy, former Israeli negotiator explaining why Benjamin Netanyahu so desperately wanted a U.S. war with Iran, explained, “Israel sees us in an era of what I would call a Pax Greater Israel. This is about how far Israel can extend its dominion, how much of a hard-power, dominant hegemon it can be in the region, seizing parts of Syria or of Lebanon, trying to finish an eradicationist approach to the Palestinians. And crucially, to do that, you have to weaken Iran militarily, to remove some kind of deterrent. You can only do that with the U.S., so you need to pull the U.S. into this war. If that means further accelerating American decline and even accelerating Israel’s loss of support in America, then it’s a price to pay. It’s kind of ‘use it or lose it,’ because those things are happening anyway.”
He added, “that’s what Netanyahu is trying to achieve, to achieve Greater Israel, domination in the region, including the weakening of the Gulf, which is intentional, at the expense of America bleeding further reputational, political, economic assets in this war”.
This was outright admitted by Lindsay Graham, the neoconservative South Carolina senator who was a key architect of the war, who reportedly “spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, coaching him on how to lobby the president for action” in Iran.
The real goal of the Iran war was laid out by Graham at the Zionist Tzedek conference, who said referring to war with Iran, “If we can pull this off, it would be the biggest change in the Mid East in a thousand years: Hamas, Hezbollah gone, the Houthis gone, the Iranian people an ally not an enemy, the Arab world moving towards Israel without fear, Saudi-Israel normalize, no more October the 7th”.
In other words, the Zionists and Neo-cons believed that if Iran was destroyed, it would therefore destroy Hamas, Hezbollah and Ansar Allah (Houthis) and pave the way for Arab states to normalise with Israel, isolating the Palestinians and paving the way for unopposed Israeli expansion.
But contrary to the hopes of Israel and its allies in the U.S. like Lindsay Graham, the U.S. did not “pull this off”, failing to destroy Iran or do regime change, eventually being forced to sign a deal after Iranian victory.
But for Israel and its American lobbyists, this is a nightmare; the lynchpin of their Greater Israel Project has now become a fantasy.
Along with pushing back the Greater Israel Project, Iran has successfully created a rift between Israel and its main patron, the United States.
Responding to reports that Israel was , angry with the Trump administration over signing the deal, Vice President JD Vance said, Trump was, “the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time” adding, “The problem for Israel is not Donald J. Trump and anybody in Israel who thinks their biggest problem is the President of the United States needs to wake up and smell the reality of the situation that the country is in”.
Trump similarly lashed out at Israel before signing the deal, saying, “If it weren’t for the United States of America, with me… Israel would not exist right now. Israel would have been blown off the face of the earth, one hundred percent — and every smart person in Israel knows that.”
Iran has forced the Trump administration to acknowledge that Israel’s plans are delusional, that it is despised by the world and that the only entity in the world propping it up is the Trump administration.
By forcing the U.S. to agree to the MOU, Iran not only defeated the plan to destroy Iran for Greater Israel, but for the first time, created an actual rift between a Trump administration desperate to end the losing war, and Israel, desperate to have their Greater Israel Project plan completed.
When the Iran War is over: Why the West Bank may be Netanyahu’s next front
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | June 17, 2026
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing perhaps the most precarious moment of his political career. He knows it. His allies know it. And his rivals—both within his coalition and across Israel’s political spectrum—are preparing to capitalize on his growing weakness.
Former Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon, who also served as deputy prime minister between 2007 and 2009, is among the latest Israeli political figures to join a growing chorus of criticism directed at Netanyahu.
“In the final result,” Ramon said in an interview with Radio Galey, cited by the Israeli outlet Srugim, “we did not win.” He then broke down that failure in blunt terms: “We did not win in Lebanon, we did not win in Iran, and we did not win against Hamas.”
Another prominent critic is former Israeli army chief Gadi Eisenkot, who joined Netanyahu’s emergency war government following the events of October 7, 2023, before resigning with Benny Gantz in June 2024.
Beyond accusing Netanyahu of failing to protect Israel on October 7, Eisenkot argues that the prime minister has effectively surrendered Israel’s political decision-making to US President Donald Trump, thereby strategically weakening Israel.
Ironically, Netanyahu’s coalition partners have often been even more opportunistic than the opposition.
Since the formation of the current coalition government on December 29, 2022—widely regarded as the most right-wing government in Israel’s history—figures such as National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich have repeatedly used Netanyahu’s political vulnerability to expand their own influence. Whenever Netanyahu needed political support to remain in power, they demanded concessions in return.
For Israel’s far-right extremists, Netanyahu’s inability to secure decisive strategic victories has often translated into opportunities to advance their own agendas. Every setback on the battlefield became an opening for greater settlement expansion, harsher measures against Palestinians, and deeper entrenchment of extremist policies.
Unable to deliver ‘victory’, Netanyahu turned perpetual war into a political strategy in its own right. The result has been a genocidal war in Gaza, widespread devastation in Lebanon, and a dangerous confrontation with Iran that has repeatedly brought the region to the brink of a wider catastrophe.
For a time, this formula proved politically sustainable. Netanyahu successfully enlisted unwavering US support to keep the fires of war burning.
At the same time, the failure of Europe and much of the international community to hold a wanted war criminal accountable provided him with the political space necessary to continue his bloody calculations.
Yet that formula may be nearing its limits. While this possibility may appear encouraging, it comes with a serious warning. If Netanyahu can no longer sustain the wars that have prolonged his political life for nearly three years, he may escalate where resistance is weakest: the occupied West Bank.
Regarding Iran, there is growing recognition that the current confrontation is unsustainable indefinitely and that some form of arrangement will eventually emerge. Likewise, regardless of whether Lebanon is formally included in any future agreement, Israel’s ambition of permanently occupying parts of Lebanese territory remains untenable.
Historically, when Israel fails to secure a strategic breakthrough on one front, it seeks compensation on another—typically where Palestinians are most vulnerable and where international scrutiny is weakest.
As Israeli elections approach, it is therefore reasonable to fear a further escalation of the genocide in Gaza, pushing both the death toll and the level of destruction to new heights. According to Gaza health authorities, nearly 1,000 Palestinians have been killed since the ceasefire agreement was announced in October, bringing the overall death toll of Israel’s genocide in Gaza to 73,000 Palestinians.
Though Israel’s war has already failed to break Palestinian steadfastness, the broader objective remains unchanged: the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza and the transformation of the Strip into a space that can no longer sustain Palestinian life.
The West Bank, however, presents a different challenge.
There, Israel faces a fragmented political landscape and a Palestinian Authority that refuses to develop an effective strategy for confronting accelerating Israeli violence, ethnic cleansing, home demolitions, land confiscation, and the relentless expansion of illegal settlements.
This vulnerability has enabled Israel to move from discussing annexation to implementing it in practice. The strategy rests on two interconnected pillars: extreme violence and displacement on the one hand, and rapid settlement expansion on the other.
According to an Oxfam International study published on June 12, Israel has killed 1,244 Palestinians, including 268 children, in the occupied West Bank since 2023—more than the total number killed during the previous seventeen years combined.
This bloodshed has been accompanied by large-scale displacement that has already uprooted nearly 46,000 Palestinians, many of them from refugee camps and vulnerable communities across the northern West Bank.
An Amnesty International report published on June 10 documented the full or partial displacement of at least 117 Palestinian Bedouin and herding communities between January 2023 and April 2026.
Expectedly, the violence, displacement, settlement expansion, and land seizures are not isolated developments but components of a coherent political project. In September 2025, Smotrich openly proposed the annexation of 82 percent of the occupied West Bank. What was once presented as a political vision is now steadily being translated into facts on the ground.
The era of Netanyahu may be nearing its end, but before this bloody political chapter closes, countless more Palestinians may be forced to bear the cost.
Arab and Muslim countries, along with their allies in the international community, must not wait for Israel to launch a much larger assault on the West Bank before responding.
The matter demands urgent attention and immediate action.
The final war or final deal: Why the MoU?
By Robert Inlakesh | Al Mayadeen | June 18, 2026
The Israeli-US plot to inflict “regime change” upon Iran has been turned into a strategic failure of historic proportions – in the end, Washington and Tel Aviv were forced to confront the reality. The newly signed Memorandum of Understanding is either a gateway to a final deal or simply another strategy to buy time.
Forty days of all-out war, followed by two months of dead-end negotiations, led to two final options: Submit to a deal that works heavily in Iran’s favour or keep on fighting until the end. What ultimately comes of this equation will completely reshape West Asia and perhaps geopolitics globally.
US President Donald Trump had tried every single avenue to pressure the Islamic Republic of Iran into surrender. He suddenly found himself in a new phase where the walls were closing in and decided to make a diplomatic move. The Iranians managed to reunite their allied fronts across the region, taking de facto ownership of the Strait of Hormuz, while proving they can fight the world’s top military superpower to a standstill.
If you were to listen to the rhetoric coming from the White House, it was like hearing a radio broadcast from a parallel universe. According to Trump, Iran was defeated all the way back in March, its military is destroyed, nobody knows who is running the country, it has no air defenses, no missiles left, no navy, and is on the verge of collapse. But quite frankly, nobody bought his nonsensical ramblings.
Beneath the egotistical exterior is a system that was running out of gas and whose operator was in panic.
In order to accurately assess the situation, we have to factor in precisely why the US leader is managing this war so incredibly poorly. The Trump administration is not composed of competent and experienced individuals; it’s a who’s who of Israeli Lobby shills and hardline ideological fanatics – a tech billionaire’s dream administration. While the Israeli Lobby and other lobby groups have for long had sway over American presidents and foreign policy, it has never been this severe.
Donald Trump exemplifies this through his total incompetence and constant inability to say no to the Israelis when it matters the most. There is, after all, a reason why no other US president agreed to go to war with the Islamic Republic upon the request of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, even when Iran was far less prepared for it militarily.
Finding out the hard way, the US president found himself caught in a quagmire– if he escalated the war, then the entire region would go up in flames, but if he backed out, he would face the wrath of the same billionaire class that put him in power to begin with.
The Zionist regime can’t defeat the Iranians alone, nor does it believe that the US will defeat Tehran conventionally. Yet, the Israeli leadership does not want to give up, for if they fail, then the Iranians will become the dominant regional power and the “Greater Israel Project” will not be able to succeed.
Therefore, they are only really left with two actual options, both involving the United States: The first is a fight to the death that could go so far that nuclear weapons become involved; the second is a large-scale attack on Iranian infrastructure.
The second option is more likely to be favoured by the Israelis than the first, and its goal will be to continue battering Iranian civilian infrastructure until the Israelis can’t take the punishment coming back its way any longer. For the US, this would represent a catastrophe, because the Iranians have long pledged to wipe out the entire region’s oil and gas infrastructure, even going after water desalination and power plants if it comes down to it.
For Washington, this means their Gulf allies will be destroyed. Keep in mind that the Trump administration previously bragged about the alleged Trillion that the Gulf Arab States had pledged to invest in the United States. All of that is gone overnight, and a global economic meltdown would be underway. Trump personally has a lot of investments in the Gulf, which means sacrificing this too.
The Israelis, on the other hand, want the Arab Gulf States weakened. This is for the very same reason they threaten Turkiye constantly – they do not want any potential competitors. Tel Aviv doesn’t even like other regional nations, who are their allies, to get the latest US fighter jets. So, the hypothetical annihilation of rich Gulf States doesn’t likely bother them at all.
As long as the primary goal is achieved, they will be happy. They want a weakened and battered Iran, an Islamic Republic that is susceptible to future color revolutions, one that can no longer impose deterrence equations. But the Americans were facing an economic tidal wave and had no good options in front of them.
If a deal is signed on the terms of the Iranians as a result of the MoU, the Israelis have been strategically defeated. The war that began on October 7, 2023, would have been completely lost for them, and they will only have two options available to them: try to linger on and delay the inevitable implosion of their expansionist project, or sign a deal with the Palestinians in order to allow for a State of Palestine to come into existence. Realistically, the so-called “Two-State solution” is their only hope of long-term survival. All of this assumes they won’t simply blow the deal up before it can come to fruition.
Iran declares victory over US
RT | June 18, 2026
Iranian officials have portrayed the newly signed memorandum of understanding with the US as a diplomatic victory achieved through strength and as evidence that Washington failed to achieve any of its objectives militarily.
The 14-point document was signed remotely by President Donald Trump and his Iranian counterpart, Masoud Pezeshkian, late Wednesday and immediately entered force, according to the Pakistani mediators.
The US side has been unusually muted in its public response. The White House has also yet to publish the final text of the memorandum, although an unnamed senior US official read out the 14-point document to journalists after days of criticism over the secrecy surrounding the deal.
Meanwhile, Iran’s parliament speaker and chief negotiator in the talks, Mohammad Ghalibaf, described the memorandum as proof of US surrender.
“The agreement is a record of US failure,” Ghalibaf said in a televised interview on Wednesday. “People will see it and judge.”
Tehran has argued that the document reflects a series of concessions by Washington, including the lifting of the US naval blockade, sanctions waivers for Iranian oil exports, access to frozen Iranian funds, and a US-backed economic reconstruction plan worth at least $300 billion. Washington has also agreed not to impose new sanctions or deploy additional forces in the region while the sides negotiate a final agreement.
In response, Iran “will make arrangements” to restore freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz – something that had not been an issue before the US-Israeli attack. However, Tehran has signaled that the key waterway will not simply return to prewar conditions.
“I emphasize again that the Strait of Hormuz will never return to the previous conditions,” Ghalibaf said. “Iran has the right to sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz, and of course, we will receive a fee for services.”
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei added that a framework was being developed to manage the key waterway, with consultations already held with Oman, as outlined in the MOU.
Tehran has also highlighted the memorandum’s language on Lebanon. “If the Israeli regime’s attacks on Lebanon continue, it will be considered a violation of the other party’s commitments under the memorandum of understanding,” Baghaei said.
The memorandum is not a final peace agreement, but launches a 60-day negotiation period during which Washington and Tehran are expected to discuss Iran’s nuclear program, sanctions relief, frozen assets, the future administration of the Strait of Hormuz, and a final settlement to be endorsed by the UN Security Council.
The nuclear language in the document states that Iran “reaffirms that it shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons” – something Tehran has been stating for years, including during both previous US-Israeli attacks. The MOU adds that the sides will work out a mechanism for the disposition of stockpiled enriched material, with the minimum methodology being down-blending on site under IAEA supervision.
Trump made multiple unrelated posts on Truth Social hours after signing but said nothing about the deal. Earlier in the day, he defended the memorandum, threatening to “bomb the hell out of” Iran if it failed to comply.
Iran reveals full text of war-ending MoU signed with US
Al Mayadeen | June 18, 2026
Iran and the United States have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) aimed at launching expanded negotiations and ending the war across all fronts in the region.
The text of the agreement, published by Tasnim News Agency, outlines a framework for a permanent cessation of hostilities, sanctions relief, maritime security arrangements, nuclear negotiations, and a roadmap toward a final agreement to be concluded within 60 days.
The full text of the Iran-US MoU
Below is the full text of the MoU as reported by Tasnim News Agency :
Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding between the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran
- The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran and their allies in the current war by signing this MoU, 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. Final deal will confirm the permanent termination of the war on all fronts, including in Lebanon, and other provisions of this paragraph.
- The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran undertake to respect each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and to refrain from interfering in each other’s internal affairs.
- The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran commit to negotiating and achieving the final deal in maximum 60 days, extendable with mutual consent.
- 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. During this period, the traffic of vessels will be in proportion to the numbers of pre-war traffic being restored by the Islamic Republic of Iran. The United States of America further undertakes to remove its forces from the proximity of the Islamic Republic of Iran within 30 days after the final deal.
- 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. The traffic of commercial vessels will immediately start, and considering the need for removing the technical and military obstacles and demining by the Islamic Republic of Iran, will be instated within 30 days. The Islamic Republic of Iran will conduct dialogue with the Sultanate of Oman to define the future administration and maritime services in the Strait of Hormuz in discussion with other Persian Gulf littoral states in line with the applicable international law and the sovereign rights of coastal states of the Strait of Hormuz.
- The United States of America undertakes with regional partners to develop a definitive, mutually agreed plan with at least $300 billion for the reconstruction and economic development of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The mechanism for the implementation of this plan will be finalized as part of a final deal within 60 days. All required licenses, waivers and permissions needed for the relevant financial transactions will be granted by the United States of America.
- 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, i.e. IAEA Board of Governors resolutions and all unilateral US sanctions, primary and secondary, in an agreed-upon schedule as part of the final deal. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America acknowledge the critical importance of the sanctions-termination issue abovementioned, and expressed their intentions to immediately address these issues in the negotiations, in order to achieve mutual agreement on them.
- The Islamic Republic of Iran reaffirms that it shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons. The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran 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 Seven, with the minimum methodology to be downblending on site under the supervision of the IAEA. The two parties also agreed to discuss the issue of enrichment and other mutually agreed matters related 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. The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran acknowledge the critical importance of the nuclear issues abovementioned and express their intention to immediately address these issues in the negotiations in order to achieve mutual agreement on them.
- Pending the final deal, the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran 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 additional forces in the region.
- The United States of America undertakes that immediately upon the signing of this MoU until the termination of sanctions, the US 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 United States of America undertakes to make fully available for use the frozen or restricted funds and assets of the Islamic Republic of Iran upon the implementation of this MoU. The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran will mutually agree on the procedures related to the release of these funds during the negotiations. Such funds, either retained in the original account or transferred, shall be made fully usable for payment to any ultimate beneficiary designated by the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The United States of America undertakes to issue all necessary licenses and authorizations accordingly.
- The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran 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 United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran will start negotiations regarding the final deal exclusively on the other paragraphs.
- The final deal will be endorsed by a binding UN Security Council resolution.
Trump leverages illegally frozen Palestinian funds to force normalization, halt legal cases against Israel
The Cradle | June 17, 2026
US President Donald Trump is seeking to leverage severe Palestinian financial hardship to coerce a “normalization” agreement that would require the Palestinian Authority (PA) to drop all international legal challenges against Israel, the Times of Israel reported on 17 June.
This proposed memorandum of understanding (MoU), negotiated by US officials Aryeh Lightstone and Scott Leith, demands the Palestinian Authority (PA) “halt efforts to internationalize the conflict with Israel.”
In exchange for these concessions, Washington has offered the hollow possibility of reopening the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) mission in Washington and lifting sanctions, but only after the PA completes a series of “Saudi-chaperoned reforms.”
The PA has further requested language in the MoU calling for a cessation of Israeli settlement expansion and a crackdown on “rampant settler violence” in the occupied West Bank.
Central to these talks is the fate of over $5 billion in Palestinian tax revenues, which Israel has been illegally withholding for over a year in violation of the Oslo Accords.
The US seeks to redirect these funds to the “Board of Peace” and its National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) to finance a post-war governance plan that bypasses the PA until it meets Washington’s benchmarks – including the dissolution of the PA’s welfare program for the families of Palestinians killed or imprisoned by Israeli occupation forces.
While the PA has agreed in principle to this diversion to secure a fraction of its own money, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has blocked the transfer, openly advocating for the “collapse of the PA” and rejecting even debt-settlement transfers in a deliberate effort to ensure the total financial strangulation of Palestinian governance.
Despite external audits confirming the PA has successfully reformed its welfare system to end payments based on attacks, a US Department report, relying on Israeli data, claimed the PA still provides “compensation in support of terrorism.”
As the US explores legally thin options to unilaterally seize Palestinian funds, officials admit the administration views the West Bank as an “afterthought” while prioritizing the expansion of the Abraham Accords.
