Both sides signed the Iran deal, but neither could deliver

When President Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signed a memorandum of understanding, the terms looked, on paper, like a significant concession from Washington.

Iran’s missile program was to be off the table. Its regional allies were off the table. The U.S. committed to a $300 billion reconstruction framework, the release of $24 billion in frozen assets, and the reopening of the Persian Gulf under what the agreement describes as Iran’s own management arrangements. Mediation would come not from Europe or the UN, but from Pakistan and Qatar.

Most international coverage treated the signing as a turning point. It was — but perhaps not in the way the headlines suggested. The more consequential question was whether this agreement could actually be implemented. We may already have our answer. As it turned out, the deal was less a diplomatic breakthrough and more a mechanism for ending a war that neither side could afford to continue. And even for that purpose, it wasn’t suited to the task.

Start with Iran. Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei issued a public statement that he held a different view on how the negotiations should proceed, and that responsibility for outcomes rests with Pezeshkian, who gave personal guarantees that Washington would honor its commitments. That was not the language of a leadership unified behind a historic deal.

The internal picture was more complicated still. The deputy chairman of the Iranian parliament’s National Security Commission said publicly that Iranian negotiators discussed nuclear issues in Islamabad without the Khamenei’s authorization. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s response in a subsequent television interview stopped short of a denial.

These were not minor procedural disputes. They indicated a negotiating team that had moved faster and further than the domestic political consensus will sustain.

On the other side, continued war meant........

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