After weeks of on-again, off-again negotiations between the U.S. and Iran, an agreement was announced Sunday on a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that provides the framework of an agreement to end the conflict that began with a joint-U.S.-Israeli air strike on Iran on February 28, AND which decapitated the Islamic regime’s leadership.

The announcement was made by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who mediated the negotiations. He said on social media that both sides “have declared the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon.”

The purpose of the MOU was to set the agenda for the negotiations to take place during the next 60 days by outlining the general goals of the final agreement between the U.S. and Iran, both concerning the arrangements for re-opening of the Strait of Hormuz to crude oil tanker traffic, as well as the restrictions that will be placed upon Iran’s nuclear weapons programs and their verification, including the disposal of Iran’s current stockpile of enriched uranium.

After the initial announcement of the agreement, President Donald Trump posted a statement on his Truth Social media account declaring that, “The deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran is now complete. Congratulations to all! I hereby fully authorize the toll-free opening of the Strait of Hormuz, and, simultaneously herewith, authorize the immediate removal of the United States naval blockade. Ships of the world, start your engines. Let the oil flow!” the president declared.

Trump Eager to Take Credit for His Flawed Deal With Iran

In another post on Monday, Trump predicted that “this great deal will bring peace and security to the whole region. Many presidents have tried to make peace with Iran, and all have failed before me. The leaders of the region have, for the first time, found [an American] president who can help them achieve real peace. With the opening of the Strait [of Hormuz] upon the signing of the deal on Friday [in Geneva], for purposes of mine removal, oil will flow on both ends again for the region, and the world!”

Later, Trump said that “Ships, many loaded with oil, are starting to move [freely] out of the Strait of Hormuz. They are heading down the southern ‘highway’ [a naval passage close to the coast of Oman], which is completely safe, secure, and clear. There are also other routes of travel!”

On Monday, President Trump issued a statement on social media accusing Democrats of spreading a “fake news” report claiming that the U.S. was going to pay Iran $300 million in return for agreeing to say that they will never have a nuclear weapon.

In a televised interview Monday morning, Vice President JD Vance announced that both sides to the agreement had digitally signed the MOU the previous day, although its provisions, including the re-opening of the Strait of Hormuz, will not go into effect until the formal signing ceremony takes place on Friday. However, it was too soon for Vance to say whether he would be representing the United States at the signing ceremony in Geneva, or if President Trump, who flew to France Monday to attend the G-7 economic summit, would extend his stay in Europe long enough to sign the Memorandum of Understanding himself.

Vance said that a permanent arrangement for toll-free passage through the Strait of Hormuz will be part of the agenda for the “technical negotiations” between the U.S. and Iran due to start next week.

In a Sunday phone interview with Fox News, Vance said he was optimistic that, provided Iran complies with the terms of the deal, it could “fundamentally transform the Middle East for the next 50 years,” and usher in a new era of stability and economic growth across the region.

“This region of the world has been a basket case for my entire life and longer than that, and what the president has really set us up to do is to certainly eliminate the nuclear threat of Iran… but now possibly to build to a new era of Middle East prosperity and success,” Vance added. He also thanked the American people for their patience in putting up with elevated prices for gas at the pump due to the war against Iran, and offered them the hope that the new agreement would quickly lead to relief from high energy prices.

In a separate interview on the CNBC cable business news channel, the vice president conceded that “a lot” of details of the hoped-for peace agreement between the U.S. and Iran remain to be ironed out, but he expressed confidence that America has “all the cards” needed to achieve its goals in the negotiations to come.

Israel’s Friends Deeply Concerned Over Secret Deal Provisions

However, that confidence in the MOU, whose actual text was not released for public review when the approval of the agreement was announced Sunday, has deeply disturbed Israel’s American supporters, such as conservative Fox News commentator Mark Levin, who has also been one of President Trump’s staunchest second-term supporters.

“I have asked for days, why can’t we, the people, see the [Memorandum of Understanding]? Not through people briefed by an anonymous person,” Levin wrote on X. “Honestly, I’ve never seen anything like this. If it is a great outcome for peace, [as Trump claims, why not] release it?” he asked, suggesting that the answer is that some of its provisions will not be pleasing to the supporters of Israel who do not believe that Iran is negotiating with the U.S. in good faith.

Fox News reporter Peter Doosey, reporting from Geneva, Switzerland, where the signing ceremony for the MOU is supposed to take place on Friday, compared the deal to “a piece of Swiss cheese, because it seems great, but there may be too many holes in it.”

South Carolina’s Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, another loyal supporter of both Israel and President Trump, has also admitted that he is “somewhat concerned” by the fact that Iran’s description of the content of the MOU agreement differs so drastically from the Trump administration’s version of the deal.

However, in a post on X, Senator Graham took comfort in the fact that “Under our law, any nuclear deal with Iran will be sent to Congress for review and a vote. I look forward to reviewing the final product. Time will tell.”

In response to these criticisms, Vance made a series of live TV interviews Monday, while Trump was attending the G7 meeting in France, in which the vice president predicted that, despite these concerns about the MOU, Israel at some point will agree to become a party to the agreement and the new round of negotiations over Iran’s nuclear weapons program because, “this agreement is going to make Israel safer; it’s going to make the entire region safer.”

Vance Blames Concerns Over the Iran Deal on Media Disinformation

Vance blamed the initial spike of opposition to the deal on “a lot of misinformation about this agreement — sometimes in the Iranian media, and sometimes in the Israeli media.”

However, the vice president asserted, “We believe quite firmly that when the Israeli people understand what’s in this agreement, they’re going to see this as a pathway to a new Middle East, to peace and prosperity in that region.

“That’s all we can really ask for. We feel quite confident the Israelis are going to be brought in on this when we get a little further down the road,” Vance declared.

The Memorandum of Understanding deal was almost derailed just a few hours before it was announced Sunday when Israel responded to a drone attack by Hezbollah on Israeli communities along the Lebanese border by bombing the Hezbollah stronghold in the Dahiyeh southern suburb of Beirut. When it was then reported that Iran planned to launch a missile strike at Israel in reaction to its attack on Beirut, Trump decided to intervene personally with Iran’s leaders by urging them to cancel the planned missile strike for fear that the escalating violence would further delay the finalization of the MOU agreement.

Meanwhile, during a joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron at the G-7 summit on Monday, Trump denied news reports claiming that Iran would begin to receive sanctions relief immediately. Instead, Trump explained, the timing of sanctions relief for Iran will depend on the regime’s behavior. “If they do what they’re supposed to do [under the terms of the new agreement], then [sanctions relief] starts taking effect.” Trump emphasized that the most important fact about the MOU is that it guarantees that Iran will never obtain a nuclear weapon.

A Consensus in Israel That Trump Has Agreed to a Very Bad Deal

Even before the details were released of the Memorandum of Understanding that President Trump negotiated with Iran and that was announced on Sunday, the verdict in Israel and among Israel’s supporters across the political spectrum was immediate, unanimous, and deeply disturbing: It is a very bad deal, and clearly endangers Israel’s national security.

Rather than bringing a new era of peace to the Middle East as President Trump had promised to do, the reported concessions to their demands in the new deal are likely to further embolden the new hardline leaders of Iran and make them even more recklessly aggressive. After a period of recovery from the damage that it suffered during the 40-days of bombardment by the U.S. and Israel, Iran will pose a renewed threat not only to Israel but also to Iran’s Persian Gulf neighbors and the other states across the Middle East, which are now well within the range of its drones and ballistic missiles, and which Iran has already attacked.

By agreeing to a deal that achieved none of the four original aims for which the U.S. and Israel jointly went to war against Iran, President Trump sold out both Israel and his partner in the original attack on Iran, Prime Minister Netanyahu. By failing to require Iran to give up its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs, and end its support and protection of Hezbollah and its other terrorist proxies, Trump’s ignominious surrender to Iran’s demands endangers Israel’s long-term survival, and has made yet another war with Iran in the years ahead inevitable.

Trump Has Abandoned His Original War Goals

Trump has abandoned those original war goals for now, in return for an agreement with Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz for the next 60 days, while leaving the other issues to a negotiating process with Iran, whose successful outcome is highly unlikely, to say the least. Trump appears to have deliberately sacrificed Israel’s security and long-term hopes for peace in the Middle East in return for bringing down the price of gas at the pump for American consumers in time to benefit the Republican candidates running for seats in the House and Senate in the November midterm elections.

Unless Iran is actively restrained by vigorous U.S. enforcement and verification of the meaningful restrictions that are reportedly called for in the new Memorandum of Understanding, the Islamic regime is certain to use the cash windfall from the elimination of the U.S. sanctions to rebuild its decimated nuclear weapons and ballistic missile capabilities and to revive its badly damaged international terrorist network, which Iran calls its Axis of Resistance, in Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq and Yemen.

President Trump’s submission to Iran’s demands was also a betrayal of Prime Minister Netanyahu, who had entrusted the American president with guaranteeing Israel’s security, and who is now being harshly criticized in Trump’s comments to the mainstream news media for vigorously implementing Israel’s right to self-defense in response to continuing attacks on the civilian population of northern Israel by Hezbollah. Netanyahu will also soon be held responsible by the Israeli people for his decision to place Israel’s security in Trump’s hands when he runs for re-election in the upcoming Israeli Knesset elections.

Trump has now sacrificed the original goals of the joint U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran. They were the permanent elimination of Iran’s nuclear threat as well as its long-range ballistic missile arsenal, and Iran’s support for its terrorist proxies, as well as the establishment of a diplomatic framework for regionwide peace through expansion of the Abraham Accords.

Trump Has Agreed to Return to the Pre-War Status Quo With Iran

Instead, Trump has now settled for the restoration of the pre-war status quo in the region, trading the promise of future sanctions relief for the new hardline leaders of the Islamic regime for the restoration of free passage through the Strait of Hormuz, at least for the first 60 days of the new ceasefire.

That is a far cry from Trump’s rhetoric on the first day of the joint U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran when he called upon the citizens of Iran to take to the streets and reclaim control of their country in the wake of the assassination of their Islamic Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and many of the senior political and military officials of the regime. Instead, the surviving leadership of Iran, with the support of the commanders of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), immediately closed ranks and made the survival of the Islamic regime at all costs their top priority.

While maintaining control over the civilian population with an iron hand, the new leaders of Iran hunkered down and demonstrated an impressive ability to withstand the devastating joint attacks from the IDF and the American military. In addition, despite the huge U.S. naval buildup in the waters of the region, Trump permitted Iran to carry out its long-term threat to close the Strait of Hormuz to the tanker traffic carrying 20 percent of the global crude oil supply. That was very unlike President Ronald Reagan’s response to a similar move by Iran in 1987, when he reflagged Kuwaiti oil tankers as American vessels and then gave them an armed escort through the Strait with U.S. Navy warships.

Trump Has Lost the Initiative to Iran’s New Hard-Line Leaders

By permitting Iran to block the Strait, creating an instant global energy shortage, reigniting the threat of inflation to the U.S. economy, and badly damaging his popularity at home with his working-class voter base, Trump ceded the initiative in the conflict to Iran. They enabled Iran’s leaders to demand the protection of Hezbollah in Lebanon from retaliation by Israel as a new requirement for the deal to re-open the Strait. They also forced Trump to drop his other war demands, including the imposition of limits on Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal and ending its support for its terrorist proxies.

There is no doubt that the 40 days of bombing and the two months of the American blockade did set back Iran’s military and economy substantially, but that respite from the Iranian threat is only temporary. As an analysis in Israel Hayom points out, the initial joint U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran “created a rare opportunity to permanently weaken Iran’s ability to threaten Israel and project power throughout the region. [But that opportunity will be lost] if the [new Memorandum of Understanding] agreement leaves Tehran with the means to recover. . . The Middle East could face the same confrontation again in the future — only after Iran has had time to regroup, replenish resources, and adapt its strategy.”

Friends of Israel officials are worried that Iran will be able to drag out the nuclear negotiations indefinitely, as they did with the Obama administration. It took 20 months of intricate and often frustrating negotiations for Obama’s secretary of state, John Kerry, to come up with the deeply flawed 2015 nuclear deal. By that time, the U.S. side had been worn down to the point that it abandoned its originally announced goals in the nuclear negotiations and allowed Iran to keep enriching uranium and retain the centrifuges and other equipment that would enable it to complete its nuclear weapons program at a time in the future of its choosing.

But in an interview with the Wall Street Journal on Sunday, Trump said that Israel shouldn’t be concerned about that. “Bibi is OK with it,” Trump said. “Why is it good for Bibi?” Trump asked rhetorically, and then supplied the answer himself, because “Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon under any circumstance.”

The Future of Israel’s War Against Hezbollah Is Now in Doubt

One of the most troubling aspects for Israeli in the reports from Iran about the points in the MOU is the claim from Iranian state news outlets and by the prime minister of Pakistan when he announced the agreement on Sunday that it calls for a halt to “military operations on all fronts, including Lebanon, effective immediately,” which would interfere with current Israeli efforts to remove all Hezbollah fighters and the group’s extensive military infrastructure in the extended security zone that the IDF has established inside Lebanon’s border with Israel.

However, that claim was denied by a senior U.S. official who told reporters that an Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon is not part of the MOU agreement. The official also said that the Trump White House views the agreement as limited to Iran and its allies and does not include Lebanon as part of the deal’s ceasefire arrangement.

The unnamed senior U.S. official said that “The (MOU) deal is a ceasefire, but it will not be a one-way ceasefire. If Iran is not able to control Hezbollah, and if they attack Israeli positions or Israeli towns, Israel will have the right to defend itself and respond.”

When Netanyahu asked about the Iranian claim that the MOU applies to Israeli troops in Lebanon, at a news conference held at his office in Yerushalayim Monday night, he declared that Israel would not be restrained, and would “preserve its freedom of action” to act against all threats in Lebanon, including Hezbollah, regardless of the wording in the MOU since Israel is not a party to that agreement. In addition, Netanyahu said, the IDF would continue to occupy the “security zones” it has established in Lebanon, Gaza, and Syria for as long as necessary to protect Israel’s security.

Netanyahu Emphasizes Progress Against Iran’s Nuclear Threat

When asked whether that principle also applies to threats from Iran, the prime minister answered by declaring that, “with an agreement, or without an agreement, Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. Not today and not tomorrow. As long as I am prime minister of Israel, it will not happen.”

Netanyahu also said, “I have devoted most of my life to preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. We will do what is necessary, and I do not limit myself in any way regarding that objective.”

When asked at the same press conference whether he was worried about angering Trump by objecting to the terms of the MOU with Iran and insisting on retaliating for Hezbollah attacks on northern Israel by bombing its strongholds in Beirut, Netanyahu responded that he and Trump had known each other for many years and did not always agree. While he and the American president “often see eye to eye, there were other times when they didn’t [but they remained friends]. I stand up for Israel’s interests, but not with bluster. To do that wisely requires a lot of experience and a deep familiarity with the American arena. I think I do that in the best possible way,” Netanyahu said.

With regard to Trump’s MOU with Iran, Netanyahu said that the American president’s goal was to create a deal that would combine the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and the elimination of Iran’s nuclear program, whereas his own top priority is to end Iran’s nuclear threat against Israel.

Citing the main security lesson that Israel learned from the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, Netanyahu declared that Israel’s new policy is that it “will never again allow terrorist organizations to camp along our borders.”

He also said that to achieve greater “weapons independence” from foreign arms suppliers, including the United States, the Israeli defense budget has been increased by 350 billion shekels (about $115 billion) to “develop technologies that break the boundaries of imagination, and make Israel an even stronger military power.”

Netanyahu Claims Military Strength Is the Key to Israel’s Security

The prime minister stressed his belief that Israel’s military strength is the key to our future, the key to our security, the key to our economy, and the key to our alliances.”

He also said that Israel “will try to build new alliances with countries in the region and outside the region,”

When another reporter asked Netanyahu whether he considered the war against Iran, which was launched by the joint U.S.-Israeli attack on February 28, to be a failure because it failed to trigger the overthrow of Iran’s Islamic regime, the prime minister noted that he had heard that question before, but that regime change was not the war’s top priority.

“I hear people asking, ‘What did we achieve [by attacking Iran]?’ [My answer is] we removed ourselves from the danger of immediate nuclear annihilation, and we did that. [Israel’s other goals included] eliminating Iran’s missile threat, and we did that. We also said we would create the conditions for the Iranian people, if they choose, to remove this terror regime.”

Towards that end, Israel’s air strikes inflicted “enormous damage to its infrastructure, and Iran is now in a very difficult economic situation.” As a result, Netanyahu said, “There are now cracks in Iran’s regime, but I do not know how to predict when they will cause the regime to fall.”

The MOU Threatens the Trump-Netanyahu Working Partnership

Nevertheless, both he and Trump were disappointed that the citizen uprising that they had hoped would lead to a much more Israel-friendly Iranian government never materialized. Instead, Trump’s pursuit of a peace agreement with Iran based upon an MOU that addresses only Iran’s nuclear weapons threat, while ignoring its ballistic missile arsenal and its support for Israel’s terrorist enemies, threatens to create a division that endangers the close working partnership between Netanyahu and Trump that had been so advantageous to Israel.

At his Monday night press conference, Netanyahu then cited some of the other accomplishments of that U.S.-Israeli partnership in the war against Iran over the past four months. “We carried out the largest attack sortie [in Israeli history]. We eliminated Iran’s nuclear scientists, we decapitated the leadership of their terrorist regime, we crushed their nuclear facilities, we destroyed their missiles, and the vast majority of their factories.”

Netanyahu also said that “Any agreement [with Iran] must be accompanied by a credible military threat.” He explained that an important difference between the deal that Trump is trying to make with Iran now compared to President Barack Obama’s flawed 2015 nuclear deal with Iran is that, “during Obama’s time, there was no military threat. Today, because we [Israel and the U.S.] carried out 14,000 [warplane] sorties, there is a credible military threat against Iran.”

“Our greatest achievement,” Netanyahu said, was that we “saved Israel from the threat of nuclear annihilation. Iran was racing toward a nuclear weapon right before [the IDF launched] Operation Rising Lion. If we had not acted, all of us in Israel would have been in danger of mass annihilation.

He also warned the Israeli people that “the struggle [against Iran] is not over,” and that Israel must “remain vigilant, strong and determined to defend ourselves as much as necessary.” Netanyahu then recalled, “We did it in Gaza, we did it in Lebanon, in Syria, in Yemen, we did it in the Palestinian refugee camps in Judea and Samaria, and we do it everywhere.”

In answer to a question from a reporter about whether he planned to run for re-election as prime minister, he replied that not only was he planning to run but that he was also going to win.

Nevertheless, Netanyahu complained to the members of the Israeli news media at his press conference that “there is an organized, systematic effort to minimize these enormous achievements, to avoid showing that Israel is emerging renewed, strong and steadfast, and that it has leadership capable of standing for what is necessary.”

Netanyahu Now Struggling to Deal With His Trump Problem

On the other hand, the current challenge facing the prime minister, in the form of an American president who is pursuing a false peace process, is much more difficult than his problems dealing with other hostile U.S. presidents over the past thirty years, including Obama, Clinton, and Biden, because he could count on support for Israel from their Republican party opponents. But in the current case, most of Israel’s supporters in Washington, D.C., consider themselves to be staunch members of Trump’s MAGA movement and would find themselves seriously conflicted if forced to choose between their loyalty to Israel and their loyalty to Trump.

The root of the problem now facing Netanyahu and Israel’s remaining supporters in Washington is that Israel’s best interests are no longer compatible with Trump’s efforts to strike a deal with Iran’s current hardline regime.

According to Middle East historian former Israeli ambassador to Washington Michael Oren, the limited scope of the Memorandum of Understanding which will serve as the basis for peace negotiations between the U.S. and Iran has frustrated Israel’s hopes that the war would bring a fundamental change to the balance of power in the region by overthrowing or crippling the Islamic regime and pave the way for the expansion of Israel’s network of Abraham Accords partners under the larger American security umbrella.

Instead, it now appears that the opposite outcome is more likely. “If Iran receives sanctions relief of billions of dollars in assets [due to its agreement to abide by the MOU], it will rebuild its military capabilities and proxies, and the blow to U.S. prestige in the region will be immense if not irreversible,” Oren said.

In addition, because of the renewed threat to the Israeli communities in the north, Oren says that Israel now has its back against the wall and can’t make concessions in its war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, even if that puts its already strained relationship with Trump at further risk.

“It’s not a question of what Israel can do, but what it must do,” Oren said to protect its citizens. “There’s almost no wiggle room there.”

Netanyahu Not the First to Have an American President Problem

However, in an opinion piece published by Israel Hayom, Oren writes that Netanyahu’s current wartime troubles with an American president are hardly unique for Israeli prime ministers going all the way back to the confrontation between Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower over the IDF’s campaign against Egypt during the 1956 Sinai campaign. The same thing happened during the 1967 Six-Day War, when President Lyndon B. Johnson prevented Israel from extending the war for an eighth day. Also, at the start of the Yom Kippur War in 1973, President Richard Nixon and his secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, persuaded Prime Minister Golda Meir not to order the IDF to launch a preventive first strike, and Israel came dangerously close to losing that war to Egypt and Syria because of it.

There were similar clashes between U.S. presidents and Israeli prime ministers during both of Israel’s wars with Lebanon and all of its clashes with Hamas in Gaza. Oren also recalled his own experience, in May 2021, 8 years after he stepped down as Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., when he received a phone call from a senior adviser to President Joe Biden, asking him to convey an urgent message to Prime Minister Netanyahu, that “Israel must end the operation [against Hamas in Gaza] tonight, or risk losing American support.”

When Oren conveyed the message, Netanyahu was furious. He had wanted the IDF to continue the operation in Gaza for another three days, but he complied with Biden’s request and shut it down immediately because Israel at that point could not afford to defy the American president.

In light of these precedents, Oren concludes that the only difference between the way President Trump is treating Netanyahu today and the way previous American presidents treated Israeli prime ministers is that Trump has more of a tendency to treat Israeli leaders at whom he is mad disrespectfully in public, as if they are “vassals who must obey his every order.”

Sometimes Israeli Leaders Must Say No to an American President

But as to the more general question of whether Israeli leaders must “obey the White House’s demands under all circumstances and at any price?” Oren says that “historically, the answer has been ‘no.’ U.S. presidents not only ordered Israel to stop fighting; they also opposed its decision to go to war in the first place. . .

“Yet,” Oren notes, “Israel’s leaders, despite the risk of a rift with Washington, determined that our basic security was at stake and decided to act.

“Ironically,” Oren notes, “every time Israel defied the White House and went to war — in 1948, for example, in 1967, and in the 1981 strike on Iraq’s nuclear reactor — we earned America’s respect. Every time we surrendered to pressure and showed restraint — in 1973 and in the 1991 Gulf War — we earned America’s contempt.”

Oren concludes that another such confrontation is likely because “Hezbollah will undoubtedly violate any ceasefire and continue attacking [Israel].” When that happens, the IDF will again need to attack Hezbollah to protect the north, and by doing so, Israel will risk “not only war with Iran but also an open confrontation with President Trump.” Nevertheless, Oren states, “as in the past, Israel will have no choice but to act.”

Oren believes that despite the “potential cost. . . Israel must show that it is. . . a sovereign country with an unshakable duty to defend its territory and its citizens.” But the former Israeli ambassador to Israel is not worried about the consequences because, “if history is our guide, Trump will respect us for it.”

Divisions Over the MOU Reported Inside Trump’s White House

Meanwhile, according to a report by the Axios news site, CIA Director John Ratcliffe has warned President Trump and other senior administration officials that his agency has collected intelligence raising serious doubts about Iran’s willingness to go through with the concessions in its nuclear program that are called for in the MOU agreement.

The intelligence reveals the content of high-level internal discussions among Iranian officials that were inconsistent with the messages that the same Iranian officials were conveying to the U.S. negotiators and the Pakistani mediators.

As a result, Axios reports, Ratcliffe, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have concluded that Iran is highly unlikely to agree to the concessions in its nuclear program that are being demanded by the Trump administration, and to which Iran is committed by the reported terms of the MOU agreement.

According to an article in Israel Hayom, Rubio and Hegseth also submitted a new assessment to Trump based upon information from senior staff at the Pentagon and State Department claiming that the current Iranian regime is dying slowly due to the growing pressure on Iran’s economy, and that further intensifying that pressure by denying Iran the sanctions relief promised under the MOU would be the most effective way to either force Iran to agree to Trump’s demands or allow enough time without that relief for the Iranian regime to collapse on its own due to its internal weaknesses.

But on the other hand, Vice President Vance said in an interview with the MS Now news network (formerly known as MSNBC) that he is convinced that at least one of the core parts of the MOU agreement will become a reality. That is the agreement calling for the United States and the U.N.’s nuclear monitoring agency, the IAEA, to help Iran destroy its stockpile of highly enriched uranium. In addition, Vance’s claim that Iran will not receive any sanctions relief from the Trump administration until it proves itself willing to actually give up its nuclear weapons program is a source of at least some comfort for Israel and its supporters.

Meanwhile, Trump’s designated negotiators, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, reportedly joined Vance in urging the president last week to agree to the MOU, because they disagree with the assessment submitted by Rubio and Hegseth. They do not believe that Iran’s current hardline regime will collapse any time soon due to the economic pressure from Trump’s blockade of Iranian ports. In addition, Trump was getting diplomatic pressure from some of the Persian Gulf states, led by Qatar, which fear that if the MOU negotiations collapse, leading to a renewal of fighting, Iran will attack its Persian Gulf neighbors and their oil facilities once again.

Vance and Trump Negotiators Opposed Rubio and Hegseth

According to the Israel Hayom report, the conflict between the two factions within the Trump White House was resolved last week with a final decision by Trump to go forward with the MOU, despite the serious doubts about the willingness of Iran’s leaders to negotiate in good faith. According to the same report, Trump also overruled objections from his Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, who opposed agreeing to any commitment in the MOU to lift any of the sanctions on Iran now, because if Iran does ultimately fail to comply with the MOU agreement, it would be very hard to reinstate them.

In that regard, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that Trump will drop all of the sanctions inhibiting Iran’s oil exports, including the related banking, shipping, and insurance restrictions, as soon as the MOU signing ceremony is completed on Friday, in an effort to give Iran’s leaders an additional incentive to enter the negotiations on the future of Iran’s nuclear program in good faith.

The report also said that one of Iran’s supertankers carrying a full load of Iranian crude oil for export was allowed to travel openly through the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday without being stopped by the U.S. naval ships, which had been enforcing Trump’s blockade.

However, the same Wall Street Journal report said that the U.S. will not allow Iran to access the estimated $24 billion worth of frozen assets in foreign banks until it sees more signs of compliance from Iran with respect to restoring freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz and addressing the concerns about Iran’s nuclear program.

What is also disturbing to supporters of Israel is that President Trump’s approach to the Iranian regime has already undergone a serious change. Instead of publicly urging Iran’s citizens to overthrow the Islamic regime that has become increasingly repressive, Trump is now negotiating a deal that will not only help that regime to survive, but it will also enable that regime to emerge significantly strengthened economically.

Trump Now Denies Calling for Regime Change in Iran

During his interview with the Wall Street Journal on Sunday, Trump said, “As far as regime change, I never cared [for it].” Instead, he said about Iran’s current leadership, “This is the third group we’ve dealt with, and this is the most rational group yet.”

Trump repeated that comment during his remarks at the G7 summit in France on Monday. “I never cared about regime change,” Trump said once again. “But I guess you have regime change because… the first group [of Iranian leaders], they’re all dead. The second group is dead. A part of the third group is gone, and [now] we’re dealing with people that I think are very rational people. They were nice to deal with. They were strong people, smart people. I think actually they’re smarter than the first and second group, but they’re not radicalized, and they’re looking to help their country.”

However, that statement contradicts what Trump said on the first day of the war when the joint U.S.-Israeli air strike killed Iran’s Supreme Leader and most of Iran’s senior political and military leaders. Trump then called upon the Iranian people to seize the opportunity to take over their government, telling them that “the hour of your freedom is at hand.

“When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will probably be your only chance for generations,” Trump warned Iran’s citizens at that time.

Trump also warned at the G7 summit about what would happen if the Iranians do break their word in signing the MOU by trying to acquire a nuclear weapon.

According to Trump, he only agreed to sign the MOU after its wording was adjusted to explicitly prevent Iran not only from developing a nuclear weapon but also from purchasing one or acquiring it through some other means. He claimed that the wording “says it loud and clear. They’re not going to develop it. They’re not going to buy it. They’re not going to do anything with it. And if they do, they suffer unbelievable consequences.”

Trump Complains About Israeli Attacks in Beirut at the G7 Summit

Trump also took the opportunity at the G7 summit to complain, “I’m not happy with the way Israel has handled themselves with Lebanon and with Hezbollah. They should have been able to do the job faster. It just goes on forever. And when that happens, it throws a negative light on the big deal, and that’s the deal with Iran.”

“Too many people are being killed,” Trump said, claiming that Israel does not “have to knock down an apartment house [in Beirut] every time you’re looking for somebody. Because there are a lot of people in those apartment houses, and they’re not all Hezbollah [members], that I can tell you.”

Trump overlooked the relevant fact that, unlike any other army in the world, standard procedure for the IDF is to give civilians living in any building that it is targeting for attack advance warning, urging them to leave and find safety elsewhere. If those civilians then choose to ignore that warning and fail to leave, it would be unfair to blame Israel should they eventually become casualties.

Trump also said, “I didn’t like where, two hours before we’re signing the [MOU] agreement, that there was an [Israeli] attack in Beirut.”

However, Trump denied a suggestion by one of the reporters at the G7 press conference that his criticism of Israel’s military actions in Lebanon meant that he was frustrated with Netanyahu. “No,” Trump insisted, “we had a great relationship.” Trump then sought to minimize their disagreement over “some [minor] details,” and explained that he thought that Netanyahu had overreacted to a Hezbollah drone attack on northern Israel. “That was vicious. That was too much.”

Trump then made the unlikely suggestion that Israel should give the job of leading the fight against Hezbollah in Lebanon to Ahmed al-Sharaa, the president of Syria. “I suggested to Israel to let Syria take care of Hezbollah,” Trump then explained, “Because to be honest with you, I think they’d do a better job of it.”

Trump described al-Sharaa, who replaced Bashar Assad as president of Syria in late 2024, and was previously the leader of the al-Qaeda-supported Al-Nusra terrorist front in Syria, as “Very capable. And he’s been very good for me. He’s protected everything that I’ve asked for… And if Israel can’t do the job without killing everyone else, he [and] Syria will do the job.”

Trump’s Vanity Clouding His Ability to See the Situation Clearly

According to veteran Yated Ne’eman commentator Avi Yishai, “It seems like Trump’s pursuit of recognition in history as a great peacemaking president is interfering with his ability to think through the current situation with Iran and Israel clearly.”

These are some of the reasons why Israel’s supporters are now deeply worried by the fact that despite Trump’s unquestioned support for Israel in the past, more than two and a half years after suffering Hamas’ devastating October 7 attack, Israel remains at war with its enemies on at least four fronts, on the ground in Gaza and in Lebanon, and in the skies over both Israel and Iran.

While Israel has succeeded in substantially weakening its enemies and strengthening its defenses, it remains very much at risk and highly dependent on the United States for the resupply of crucial weapons ranging from interceptor missiles for the Iron Dome to precision laser-guided bombs to armored Caterpillar D-9 bulldozers.

Iran’s stockpile of ballistic missiles has been reduced in numbers, both as a result of U.S. and Israeli air strikes, and Iran’s usage of them against its neighboring Persian Gulf states and Israel since the current war started at the end of February. However, Iran still has enough missiles left to pose a serious threat to Israel and the Gulf states. In addition, despite U.S. and Israeli efforts to shut down Iran’s capacity to produce more missiles, it has managed to at least partially replenish its supply by digging up its still usable missiles that were buried under previous U.S. and Israeli air strikes and then using them to further deplete the remaining supplies of U.S. and Israeli interceptor missiles.

Israel Still Facing Threats on Many Fronts

Iran’s terrorist proxies have also been left standing and capable of rebuilding their threat to Israel. Hamas has been able to regain virtually full control over the population of the roughly 40% of Gaza that is not currently being occupied by the IDF, under Trump’s still unrealized Gaza peace plan, whose implementation has been stalled for seven months by Hamas’ stubborn refusal to allow itself to be disarmed.

Hezbollah is currently fighting a rear-guard action against the advancing IDF forces, which are turning southern Lebanon into an Israeli security zone. Hezbollah’s first-person drones are also causing serious casualties among Israeli troops, while its rocket attacks continue to make the Israeli communities along the northern border with Lebanon unsafe for their civilian population.

As far as the Houthis in Yemen are concerned, they still fire their long-range rockets at targets in Israel whenever they choose, which is more of a nuisance than a serious security threat to Israel, but they do still have the capacity to harass maritime traffic, at Iran’s request, by closing the Bab al-Manab Strait, denying access by international shipping to the Red Sea, to or from Israel’s port of Eilat and the Egyptian Suez Canal leading to the Mediterranean Sea.

In addition, until the actual text of the MOU between Iran and the U.S. is made public after its formal signing in Geneva Friday, so that its restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program can be accurately evaluated, it is not clear whether it will dispose of Iran’s nuclear threat, once and for all, and whether it will result in an enforceable peace agreement between the U.S. and Iran, as Trump has promised that it will. In addition, Iran’s deputy foreign minister has claimed that under the terms of MOU agreement, it will not even begin to negotiate the fate of its nuclear program until the U.S. has released $24 billion worth of Iranian assets frozen by U.S. sanctions in foreign banks, and agreed to support a reconstruction plan for Iran’s economy worth at least $300 billion, but U.S. officials have denied that the MOU agreement includes that requirement.

It has also been reported that, at Iran’s insistence, Trump has agreed to remove from the MOU’s agenda negotiations for any restrictions on Iran’s ballistic missile program with which it is still menacing Israel and Iran’s Persian Gulf neighboring states, or talks on ending Iran’s support for its terrorist proxy organizations including Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, Hamas in Gaza, and the Shiite militias in Iraq.

Trump Has Made Important Concessions in Return for Very Little

In return for those significant concessions, it is not even clear that Trump has received a commitment from Iran that passage through the Strait of Hormuz will remain free to all without the imposition of toll fees after the current 60-day extension of the ceasefire with Iran has expired. In fact, according to one Iranian news report, after the ceasefire, all maritime traffic in the Persian Gulf “will be regulated by Iran in coordination with Oman,” directly contradicting Trump’s claims.

In addition, even though Trump has repeatedly promised that Iran’s nuclear program will be completely dismantled and that it will never be allowed to enrich uranium on its own soil again, during his interview with the New York Times over the weekend, he watered down that promise to a pledge that Iran would be “forever limited” to low-level uranium enrichment that “can never be used by the military. . . They will never be able to go beyond a certain amount,” by which he presumably meant the 3.67% maximum level of enrichment that is used in the fuel for non-military nuclear power reactors.

Trump has also claimed that Iran has agreed to cooperate with the United States in a joint effort to excavate, dilute, and remove all 12 tons of enriched uranium currently in Iran’s possession. That includes all 970 pounds of 60% enriched uranium that was buried deep underground last June by the 15-ton bunker-busting bombs dropped by U.S. Air Force B-2 stealth bombers on three Iranian nuclear sites. Trump also said that the MOU promises to give the U.S., and presumably U.N. nuclear weapons monitors, as well, “strong policing powers” to ensure that Iran does not violate its commitments to abandon its nuclear activities, by providing for “almost immediate” access by inspectors to all of Iran’s known nuclear facilities.

The MOU Deal Won’t Be Really Finished Until the Friday Signing

Because the exact terms of the MOU agreement will probably remain unknown until the signing ceremony in Geneva on Friday, it appears possible that either side could still try to change those terms. The hardline rulers of Iran, in particular, may decide to roll the dice again by refusing to participate in the public signing ceremony and demanding more concessions from Trump with regard to the new restrictions on its nuclear program.

That would mean that the Strait of Hormuz would remain closed, with the resulting high prices for crude oil and gas at the pump exerting more political pressure on Trump to agree to Iran’s demands. In the meantime, Israel’s war against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon would continue, with Iran still threatening to launch ballistic missiles at Israel should the IDF strike again at Hezbollah targets in Beirut in retaliation for any further Hezbollah attacks on northern Israel.

Another likely possibility is that the MOU signing ceremony will take place in Geneva as announced, but that the subsequent negotiations over the fate of Iran’s nuclear program go nowhere because the Iranians were never serious about agreeing to give it up, as CIA director Radcliffe has warned. In addition, Iran’s leaders no longer seem to fear a military retaliation from Trump, because of Iran’s proven ability to survive the worst punishment that the U.S. military can inflict upon them.

In such a scenario, Trump would be unlikely to order another round of American air strikes on Iran because it could trigger another decision by Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz. That would leave Iran’s leader free to continue their efforts to rebuild their military capabilities while finding new ways to evade the U.S. sanctions on its oil exports, and intimidating its Persian Gulf neighbors to warn them off getting any closer to either the U.S. or Israel.

On the other hand, Israel would likely prefer to see the collapse of the post-signing negotiations, because that would enable the IDF to continue its operations in southern Lebanon without any more interference from Trump. Meanwhile, Israel would also like to see Iran prevented from receiving any meaningful sanctions relief, so that its economic and military recovery from the losses it suffered from the attacks by Israel and the U.S. will be delayed for as long as possible.

The Biggest Unresolved Issue Is Over the Battle in Lebanon

Perhaps the most contentious issue surrounding the unreleased text of the MOU was over any restrictions that it does or does not contain limiting the IDF’s freedom of action in Lebanon, concerning its ability to respond with full force against Hezbollah strongholds in Beirut in response to any further Hezbollah attacks on Israeli communities along the Lebanese border.

According to Pakistani and Iranian sources, the MOU agreement extends the ceasefire agreement to Lebanon. In addition, according to an Iranian claim, the MOU now includes a new provision requiring a complete IDF withdrawal from its security zone in southern Lebanon. It was allegedly added to the MOU agreement at the last minute to get Iran to call off its plan to launch missiles at Israel in retaliation for the IDF’s latest strike at Hezbollah’s stronghold in Beirut on Sunday, which likely would have derailed the entire peace process.

Prime Minister Netanyahu made it clear in his Monday night press conference that he does not consider Israel to be bound by any clause limiting the IDF’s freedom of action in Lebanon because “Israel is not a party to the Memorandum of Understanding.” It did not sign onto the document, nor was it allowed to have any input in drafting its provisions. As a result, the prime minister said, the IDF will continue to expand its current operations in southern Lebanon, and it will not withdraw from the territory in Lebanon that Israeli troops are currently occupying.

In addition, the Jerusalem Post reported Tuesday, the Trump administration turned down a formal request to view the full final text of the Memorandum of Understanding before the signing ceremony in Geneva on Friday, presumably to prevent Netanyahu from being able to launch any attempt to undermine the deal, as he tried to do to President Obama’s administration.

Too Late for Netanyahu to Distance Himself From Trump Now

It is now clearly far too late for Netanyahu to try to disassociate himself from his decision to gamble on Trump’s support for Israel, after he had convinced many Israelis and supporters of Israel that he is the most pro-Israel American president in history.

Trump major historic moves in support of Israel include the relocation the U.S. Embassy to Yerushalayim, and the recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights during his first term as president, and Trump’s pivotal role during his second term as president in ending the post-October 7 war against Hamas in Gaza, and securing the return to Israel of all 250 of the hostages who were taken by Hamas that day.

However, like any other small country that seeks such a close relationship with a global superpower like the United States, Israel is taking a risk that the day may come when its own national security interests no longer coincide or even begin to clash with America’s priorities.

That is apparently what is happening now. Trump believes that it is currently in America’s best interests to re-open the Strait of Hormuz as quickly as possible and secure a credible nuclear agreement with the current Iranian regime at almost any price, including an agreement that ignores Israel’s concerns about Iran rebuilding its arsenal of ballistic missiles and Iran’s continuing support for Hezbollah’s attacks on northern Israel.

Netanyahu’s defenders argue that, despite their shared disappointment over the watered-down MOU defining the terms of the proposed American peace deal with Iran, the U.S.-Israeli partnership over the past year has yielded significant military achievements against Iran. If it adheres to the terms of the MOU, Iran will no longer be a nuclear threshold state. Its nuclear capabilities have been pushed back by years, and it is no longer capable of producing tens of thousands of ballistic missiles with which to overwhelm Israel’s formidable missile defenses.

Nevertheless, Netanyahu’s once extremely close partnership with Trump against Iran has been severely weakened due to Israel’s objections to the reported terms of the MOU, and the still serious Iranian threats to Israel’s security that the current agreement fails to address.

Netanyahu has been forced to anger Trump repeatedly over the past few weeks by insisting on Israel’s right and duty to retaliate against Hezbollah missile and drone strikes on northern Israel by attacking terrorist strongholds in the Dahiyeh suburb of Beirut, despite Iran’s efforts to shield its proxy terror group from the consequences of its repeated violation of the ceasefire in Lebanon. At the same time, Trump has publicly humiliated Netanyahu several times, calling him crazy, challenging his good judgment, and saying in effect: Without me, you would already be sitting in prison, and Israel would already have been destroyed by an Iranian nuclear weapon.

Trump Intervened to Cancel an Israeli Air Strike on Iran

It has also been revealed by the commander of the Israeli air force that Trump intervened last week and forced Netanyahu to cancel Israel’s largest ever air strike against Iran. The attack against hundreds of strategic targets across Iran was called off just one hour before every warplane in Israel’s inventory was scheduled to take off on the historic mission.

Netanyahu may be technically correct in arguing that militarily, Israel today is stronger than ever. But that strength has come at a high price by compromising Israel’s freedom of action on the battlefield, which is now as severe under Trump as it was in Gaza during the year following the Hamas October 7 attack due to the interference and public second-guessing by Trump’s predecessor, President Joe Biden.

For better or for worse, Netanyahu and Israel remain too dependent on continued support and military cooperation from Trump and the U.S. government to risk trying to cut back on those ties now. That would leave Israel to continue the ongoing fight against its enemies alone.

Israel’s Right to Self-Defense Is Being Seriously Challenged

Meanwhile, because Israel’s exercise of its right to self-defense when attacked, first in Gaza and now in Lebanon, has come under criticism from almost every other country in the world, Trump is treating Israel as if it were a U.S. protectorate that is totally dependent upon his goodwill for its continued survival. As part of this arrangement, Trump now appears to be willing to sacrifice Israel’s vital national security interests in the pursuit of his goal to claim credit for ending the war against Iran on his own terms.

In response to this turn of events, the only thing that Israel and its friends can do now is to try to gain a better understanding of the current status of each of the four major security threats to Israel from Iran and its proxies, which Netanyahu publicly identified last week.

With regard to the status of Iran’s stockpile of 970 pounds of 60% enriched uranium, which is enough to build 11 nuclear weapons, and which Trump currently refers to as “nuclear dust,” he appears to be in no hurry to remove it, because most of it is believed to be buried deep underground as a result of the American B-2 bomber attack on Iran last June, and is therefore currently inaccessible to Iran’s nuclear engineers, and poses no immediate security threat.

With regard to Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, which was also badly damaged over the past year by the combination of U.S. and Israeli air strikes, Trump will apparently be satisfied to leave what remains of it under Iranian control, but only as long as it will be under close supervision by both American and U.N. nuclear monitors with enhanced “inspection powers” to investigate any suspicious Iranian nuclear activity for many years to come.

With regard to the threat to Israel and the entire region from Iran’s huge long-range ballistic missiles, before the war began at the end of February, Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke openly about the need to impose strict limits on Iran’s missile capabilities and to end its support for its terrorist proxies. But when Iran refused to discuss those issues, even after the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding, Trump promptly removed both subjects from the negotiating agenda. He thereby ensured that these two major Iranian threats to Israel’s national security will survive the current war, severely reduced but still intact, and ready to be rebuilt by Iran in the years ahead, using the funds that will be generated by the lifting of all of Trump’s current sanctions on Iran as soon as MOU negotiations over the future of Iran’s nuclear program get started.

Early Hopes for Iran’s “Complete Surrender” Now a Distant Memory

When the war against Iran started last February, the Israeli and American goal was, as Trump put it, to force Iran into “complete surrender.” But in reality, the Islamic regime, under new, hardline direction, remains standing, and has been further empowered by its now proven ability to hold the global energy market hostage by seizing control over the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump’s dream of a quick and easy victory over Iran has long since disappeared. His alliance of convenience with Israel in the initial attack has now become a serious political liability for Trump, who now urgently needs to re-open the Strait of Hormuz and end the war for domestic American political reasons, regardless of the concessions that he has to make to get Iran to agree to it.

Netanyahu and all other responsible leaders, across the Israeli political spectrum, have always agreed that no agreement with Iran over its nuclear and other threats to Israel’s security would be much preferable to a bad agreement with Iran, which now seems to be emerging.

Furthermore, to keep Netanyahu from trying to generate American political opposition to the MOU, Trump has not hesitated to throw the Israeli prime minister “under the bus” by belittling him and trying to destroy his credibility as Israel’s elected national leader.

As a result, from Israel’s perspective, the war against Iran, which started so successfully, is now in real danger of ending up as both a political and strategic disaster for Israel, with the only real hope of avoiding catastrophe being the likelihood that the Iranians will overplay their hand, leading to the collapse of the MOU negotiations before they can do any further damage.