The June memorandum was supposed to be Donald Trump's triumph - proof that war can be stopped with threats, pressure, and a single dramatic signature. Instead, it turned into political testimony of Washington's strategic helplessness: fighting was temporarily interrupted, but not a single cause of the conflict was eliminated. Trump achieved not peace, but a brief respite that both sides used to prepare for the next round of war.
In mid-June, it seemed that US President Donald Trump had achieved the exact result he prefers to present to voters: the war is stopped, the Strait of Hormuz is opening, the oil market is calming down, and opponents are sitting down at the negotiating table. Signed on June 17 in Versailles, the memorandum between the US and Iran proclaimed an immediate cessation of military operations, provided for a gradual lifting of the American naval blockade, and guaranteed commercial vessels safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz. Washington and Tehran gave themselves 60 days to work out a final agreement.
Within a month, this construct fell apart. US President Trump declared the truce effectively over, American strikes resumed, Iran began attacking American targets and Washington's allies again, and the Strait of Hormuz turned back into an arena of military pressure. By July 20, American aviation was striking Iran for the ninth consecutive night, Tehran was reporting damaged tankers, and Brent crude oil rose above $90 a barrel.
This is not just another breakdown of a Middle East ceasefire. It is a political diagnosis of Trump's entire foreign policy method. He knows how to create pressure, raise the stakes, project unpredictability, and force an opponent to talk. But between forcing negotiations and creating a durable order, there is a distance that cannot be bridged by bravado alone.
The Iranian episode demonstrated this with particular clarity.
A Truce Without Peace: What Was Actually Signed at Versailles
The June 17 memorandum was not a peace treaty or even a full-fledged agreement to end the war. It was a temporary operational deal that allowed both sides to step back from a dangerous precipice without publicly admitting defeat.
Iran committed to ensuring free and safe passage for commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz for 60 days. The US was supposed to begin lifting the blockade and complete the process within 30 days. The parties promised not to initiate new military operations and to continue negotiations toward a final settlement. Pakistan acted as a mediator and witness.
However, the text postponed the very issues that started the war in the first place.
The future of the Iranian nuclear program was left unresolved. The verification mechanism for struck facilities remained unclear. The fate of highly enriched uranium stockpiles received no final resolution. The formula for sanctions relief, Tehran's access to frozen assets, and the procedure for utilizing promised reconstruction funds were left for further negotiation. Even the navigation regime in the Strait of Hormuz was interpreted differently by each side.
The memorandum regulated the consequences of the conflict, but not its root causes.
Washington wanted guaranteed freedom of navigation, an end to rising oil prices, and reduced losses for American armed forces. Tehran sought an end to the blockade, the restoration of oil exports, access to foreign currency, and the preservation of control over its nuclear infrastructure. Both sides signed one text, but saw two different agreements in it.
For the White House, it was the first stage of capitulation by a weakened Iran. For the Iranian leadership, it was an acknowledgment by the United States that Tehran could not be forced into total surrender by air power alone.
Such a document could function only with minimum trust, a precise execution mechanism, and a shared vision of the end goal. There was neither the first, nor the second, nor the third.
Trump Confused a Deal With Security Architecture
US President Trump's signature model is built on several techniques: sharp escalation, personalization of negotiations, demonstrative willingness to exit prior obligations, creating a sense of urgency, and offering an opponent the chance to declare a concession a victory.
In a commercial dispute, this approach can be effective. In international politics, it works only when the subject of the deal is narrow, the interests of the parties are measurable, and breaking the agreement carries clear and inevitable costs.
Iran met none of these conditions.
Washington faced not a single problem, but several interconnected conflicts at once: the nuclear program, maritime security, missile capabilities, Tehran's regional network of allies, the survival of the Iranian political system, internal regime struggles, and the population's attitude toward foreign intervention.
The White House attempted to reduce this structure to a bargain: Tehran opens the strait, the US lifts the blockade, and then the parties discuss the rest.
Yet the Strait of Hormuz is not merely a shipping route for Iran. It is the primary instrument of asymmetric deterrence. As long as the US holds superiority in air power, naval forces, intelligence, and long-range weaponry, Tehran offsets its weakness through the ability to threaten roughly a fifth of global oil trade. Surrendering this tool without irreversible American concessions would mean voluntarily stripping the regime of its primary leverage.
Therefore, the memorandum contained its own mechanism of destruction. The US viewed the opening of the strait as a prerequisite for further concessions. Iran viewed the strait as collateral that could be fully unblocked only after receiving sanction, financial, and military-political rewards.
When the promised benefits appeared insufficient to Tehran and Washington accused Iran of violations, each party returned to the only tool it trusted: the United States to airstrikes and a naval blockade, Iran to missiles, drones, and threats to shipping.
Washington's Strategic Error: The Regime Proved Weak, But Not Helpless
American strategy proceeded from the belief that the Iranian system was on the verge of collapse. Grounds for such an assessment existed.
In late December 2025, a new wave of protests erupted in Iran. After January 8, 2026, security forces turned to the widespread use of live ammunition. Human rights organizations reported thousands of deaths, arbitrary detentions, disappearances, and torture. A nationwide internet blackout complicated verifying the exact casualty count, but the scale of violence was unprecedented even by Iranian standards.
The economic situation was likewise pushing the country toward a social explosion. The collapse of the rial, rising food prices, job losses, and falling real incomes turned daily survival into the primary concern for millions of families. Following the resumption of the war, the rial exchange rate approached 1.95 million to the dollar, annual inflation by some estimates reached nearly 90%, and the scope of destruction and job losses came to be measured in the millions.
However, systemic weakness did not imply an inability to resist.
Political systems do not fall merely because the population grows poorer or hates the government. They collapse when the ruling coalition fractures, security forces refuse to follow orders, elites seek guarantees from victors, and the state apparatus loses the capacity to control territory and the information space.
In Iran, this did not happen.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, police, Basij structures, judiciary, and intelligence services maintained command and control. The state continued producing missiles and drones, controlling major cities, carrying out arrests, restricting communications, and mobilizing supporters.
Washington destroyed part of the infrastructure and weakened Tehran's military capabilities, but failed to break the mechanism of power. Moreover, external strikes allowed that mechanism to gain fresh legitimacy.
Bombings Gave the Regime What It Had Long Lacked
Before the war, the leadership of the Islamic Republic was fighting its own society. After strikes began, it gained the opportunity to portray itself as the defender of the nation.
This is a fundamental distinction.
Iranian society is not identical to the regime. Millions of citizens reject religious dictatorship, mandatory behavioral codes, political executions, corruption, and the dominance of security officials. Young Iranians continue bypassing bans, ignoring dress requirements, using blocked platforms, and creating a private space radically different from official ideology.
Yet rejection of the regime does not translate into willingness to welcome the destruction of bridges, factories, power plants, ports, and historic sites by foreign armed forces.
During the war, national identity began supplanting internal political conflict. People who opposed the clergy witnessed destruction, civilian deaths, lost livelihoods, and the threat of the country's dismemberment. A portion of society began perceiving events not as an operation against the authorities, but as a war against Iran.
It was precisely this transformation that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps exploited. State propaganda overhauled the narrative: it was no longer about defending the regime, but about defending civilization, history, and sovereignty.
Damage to cultural heritage amplified this effect. Military strikes inflicted harm on historic structures, including sites connected to the heritage of Isfahan and Tehran. Even where destruction resulted from shockwaves rather than direct hits, the distinction was secondary to public perception. Shattered stained glass and ancient tilework proved politically more useful to the regime than dozens of propaganda broadcasts: they transformed an external attack into a personal humiliation for every Iranian.
Khamenei's Funeral Became a State Referendum on Loyalty
The death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on February 28 was intended to decapitate the system. However, his funeral in early July turned into the largest demonstration that the regime retained its capacity for mass mobilization.
Hundreds of thousands gathered in Tehran. Ceremonies featured slogans against the US and Israel, alongside calls for revenge and the assassination of American and Israeli leadership. The farewell lasted several days before Ali Khamenei was buried in Mashhad.
The scale of state funerals cannot automatically be taken as proof of universal support for the regime. Iran maintains an extensive system of administrative mobilization, transportation for participants, catering logistics, and curated broadcast coverage. Yet denying the presence of a genuine patriotic surge would also be a mistake.
Particularly telling was the fact that the new Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, made no appearance at the funeral or other major public events. According to available data, he was wounded in the strike that killed his father. His absence heightened questions about his health, the degree of his control over the system, and the actual distribution of authority among the Supreme Leader's office, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, President Masoud Pezeshkian, and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf.
Yet uncertainty did not yield an institutional vacuum. The Iranian system proved less personalistic than its opponents assumed. The elimination of the head of state did not destroy the network of military, religious, and economic structures bound together by shared interests and fear of defeat.
While Trump Declared Peace, Tehran Built a State of Military Control
The pause in hostilities did not bring a period of political softening for Iranians. On the contrary, authorities used the war as grounds to expand repression.
Following the start of American and Israeli strikes on February 28, Iranian security structures detained over 6,000 people, including protesters, journalists, lawyers, human rights defenders, and representatives of ethnic and religious minorities. Judicial organs expedited political cases, including trials where defendants faced the death penalty.
Amnesty International held data on at least 36 individuals executed on politically motivated charges after the war began. No fewer than 78 people remained under threat of execution, including 41 participants in the January protests. Some defendants were minors at the time of their alleged offenses.
Human rights advocates subsequently reported a further rise in political executions. War supplied the authorities with a universal formula for prosecution: any opponent of the regime could be declared an agent of Israel or the US, a separatist, a saboteur, or an information warfare operative.
This represents one of the most dangerous consequences of foreign intervention. When a state comes under attack, the line between dissent and high treason is erased by administrative decree. The regime gains the ability to suppress opposition not as political adversaries, but as suspected accomplices of the enemy.
The ceasefire did not deprive Tehran of this tool. On the contrary, the memorandum reduced immediate external pressure, leaving the security apparatus alone with society.
The Internet Transformed From a Communication Tool Into a Loyalty Distribution System
Control over information became no less critical than control over the streets.
In January, during the mass crackdowns on protests, authorities shut down internet access across the country. After strikes commenced on February 28, internet traffic dropped by approximately 98%. Most citizens gained access only to a restricted number of resources within the national network, while state structures, privileged organizations, and select institutions retained broader connectivity options.
A multi-tiered digital system effectively took shape.
The internet ceased to function as shared infrastructure and became a political privilege. Full access was granted to those trusted by the state. The rest received a curtailed network tailored for surveillance, filtering, and user identification.
Security forces searched for Starlink equipment, tracked the transmission of materials to foreign media, and attempted to locate the sources of video footage showing protests and strike sites. Restrictions simultaneously hindered the documentation of abuses, destroyed small businesses, deprived online professionals of income, and deepened regional isolation.
Such control is not a temporary martial law measure, but a prototype for a future governance model. Tehran seeks to construct a digital border within its own country: one network for the state and loyal institutions, and another for the population.
The Survival Economy: Normal Life as an Optical Illusion
Following the June agreement, Iranian cities indeed began to appear calmer. Shops, cafes, and shopping centers were operating. People were returning to parks, young people were meeting friends, and streets were once again filling with automobiles.
Yet this external normality was misleading.
Economic life continued not because the crisis had ended, but because the population had learned to exist within it. Families reduced consumption, sold property, transitioned to the informal sector, sent teenagers to work, forgave medical expenses, and postponed education.
After strikes resumed, prices for basic goods nearly doubled in certain areas. Unemployment struck regions reliant on internet services and small businesses with particular severity. The destruction of industrial facilities stripped hundreds of thousands of workers of income, while the continued blockade of ports threatened imports of food, medicine, equipment, and components.
Iran's economic paradox lies in the fact that the state possesses vast reserves of oil and gas, but lacks the capacity to translate them into sustainable prosperity. Sanctions limit investment and financial settlements, corruption reduces efficiency, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps controls a significant portion of the economy, and military expenditures crowd out social spending.
Moreover, any easing of sanctions does not necessarily improve the population's plight. Additional oil revenues first strengthen the state budget, the security apparatus, and elite-controlled structures. The effect reaches households slowly and unevenly.
Consequently, the June memorandum could temporarily stabilize the currency market and exports, but failed to eliminate the root cause of social discontent. Doing so would require structural reforms, curbing the economic power of security officials, restoring trust, securing access to investment, and altering foreign policy.
The regime had no intention of doing anything of the sort.
Why the Reliance on American Bombs Was Doomed
A segment of the Iranian opposition genuinely hoped that external pressure would bring about the fall of the Islamic Republic. Following the January bloodshed, such hope is understandable. When internal protest is suppressed with machine guns, prisons, and gallows, foreign force begins to appear as the sole mechanism for change.
However, banking on external military intervention contained a fundamental contradiction.
To assist society in overthrowing a regime, one must weaken the security apparatus without destroying the state itself. It is necessary to dismantle the government's capacity for repression while preserving infrastructure, communications, logistics, the economy, and a sense of national unity.
An aerial campaign almost inevitably produces the opposite result. It destroys not only command posts, but also roads, power grids, enterprises, and livelihoods. It enables the regime to brand the opposition as accomplices of the enemy. It compels even opponents of the government to fear chaos, separatism, foreign occupation, and the country's collapse.
The United States and Israel could inflict immense material damage on Iran. But damage to the state does not equate to the liberation of society.
The regime gained the ability to tell Iranians: you may hate us, but without us, the country will become the next Libya, Syria, or Iraq.
And as long as an alternative center of power remains incapable of guaranteeing territorial integrity, security, and governance, that argument holds weight.
The Nuclear Problem Has Not Vanished - It Has Grown More Complex
The White House framed the June agreement as a step toward preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. However, the memorandum failed to create a comprehensive control regime.
Strikes could destroy individual facilities, equipment, and research centers, but they simultaneously intensified Tehran's strategic rationale for acquiring nuclear capability. For the Iranian elite, the war served as proof that conventional armaments, missiles, and control over the strait do not guarantee the leadership's immunity.
Following the death of Ali Khamenei, destruction, and attempts at external pressure, the nuclear issue ceased to be merely ideological. It transformed into a matter of the regime's physical survival.
This is precisely why reaching a final agreement is now more difficult than before the war. Washington demands stricter limitations, viewing Iran as weakened. Tehran, conversely, requires stronger security guarantees, having witnessed the readiness of the US and Israel to launch strikes and target top leadership.
The parties emerged from the war with opposing conclusions.
The US concluded that pressure works and ought to be intensified. Iran concluded that lacking an absolute deterrent leaves the nation vulnerable.
This forms an almost perfect formula for renewed escalation.
The Strait of Hormuz: A Weapon That Cannot Be Bombed Away
US military power allows for the destruction of radars, missile positions, airfields, and command centers. Yet it cannot alter geography.
The Strait of Hormuz remains a narrow maritime corridor between Iran and Oman. To destabilize it, Tehran does not require total superiority. Mines, anti-ship missiles, drones, small boats, sabotage, and threats that drive up insurance rates are entirely sufficient.
Even limited incidents force shipowners to alter routes, delay tanker departures, and demand additional guarantees. The market reacts not only to actual supply disruptions, but also to the probability of a future crisis.
In June, the memorandum temporarily removed the risk premium. In July, it returned: following new attacks, Brent crude climbed above $90, and vessel transits through the strait began to contract.
For Trump's US, this is particularly sensitive. Rising oil prices turn a foreign policy failure into a domestic political issue for America: gasoline, transportation, food, and manufacturing costs escalate. Consequently, Washington is forced to simultaneously threaten Iran and seek a new agreement.
Tehran understands this dependency. The more dire its own position becomes, the greater the temptation to export the economic costs of the war to the rest of the world.
Greenland, Ukraine, NATO: Where Trump's Method Works and Where It Breaks Down
Iran is not the sole example of inconsistency in President Trump's foreign policy model.
On the Greenland issue, pressure proved almost entirely counterproductive. The United States already possessed extensive options for a military presence on the island under the 1951 agreement with Denmark. Threats to establish American control did not resolve real security concerns, but instead created conflict with a NATO ally and reinforced resistance from Copenhagen and the population of Greenland.
Here, both mutual agreement on the subject of negotiations and tangible leverage to achieve a voluntary deal were absent. Pressure did not create room for compromise; it destroyed it.
Regarding Ukraine, the trajectory differed. The initial American 28-point plan largely reflected Russian demands, including territorial concessions and limits on the Ukrainian military. According to Reuters, it was partly based on a document previously handed to the US administration by the Russian side.
Ukraine's resistance, Europe's stance, and Russia's inability to achieve a decisive military victory forced Washington to adjust its approach. At the NATO summit in Ankara, US President Trump announced a readiness to grant Ukraine a license to produce Patriot interceptor missiles. This did not signal a complete strategy shift, but demonstrated that the White House is capable of revising initial assessments when the balance of power changes.
Trump achieved concrete success within NATO. However, even here, the result cannot be attributed solely to his pressure.
At the July 7–8 summit, allies reaffirmed their Article 5 commitments, locked in a trajectory to increase defense spending to 5% of GDP by 2035, and pledged to provide Ukraine with €70 billion in military assistance, equipment, and training in 2026. European allies and Canada increased investments in core defense needs by over $139 billion.
Pressure indeed accelerated the debate on burden-sharing. Yet the primary driver of European rearmament was Russia. Poland, Germany, Finland, the Baltic states, and the Nordic countries are expanding military capacity not out of a desire to please the White House, but because they perceive the Russian threat as long-term.
Trump's method succeeded where his demands aligned with the objective interests of allies. It failed where it attempted to substitute reality with the force of assertion.
A Deal Has a Price; A Strategy Has Direction
US President Trump favors quantifiable outcomes: a signed document, an announced truce, a new defense spending figure, an agreed procurement of arms, a partner's public concession.
Yet strategic success is measured differently.
It is determined by whether the system becomes more stable after the deal. Whether the motivation of the parties has changed. Whether oversight mechanisms have emerged. Whether the likelihood of a new war has decreased. Whether allies have gained confidence and adversaries an understanding of the cost of violations.
The June memorandum with Iran failed every single one of these tests.
It did not halt the nuclear standoff. It did not establish a permanent navigation regime. It did not secure inspections. It did not protect the Iranian population from repression. It did not resolve the sanctions issue. It did not define the future of Tehran's armed formations. It did not fix a mechanism of penalty for breaching terms.
Its chief achievement was a pause.
Yet a pause holds political value only when utilized to build peace. Iran used it to restore control, mobilize supporters, and persecute opponents. The US used it to declare a victory that did not yet exist.
Tehran Survived, But Did Not Emerge Victorious
The failure of American strategy does not signify an Iranian victory.
The Islamic Republic sustained severe losses. Its military infrastructure is damaged, its economy is crumbling, its currency is depreciating, and its political system is undergoing an unclear transfer of power. The new Supreme Leader remains hidden from the public, while the influence of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps grows within the elite.
The war also demonstrated the limits of Tehran's regional model. Attacks on neighboring states and American installations evoke not solidarity, but fear and a push among Gulf nations to bolster air defenses and deepen ties with Washington.
Control over the Strait of Hormuz provides Iran with leverage, but simultaneously holds it accountable for a global energy crisis. The more actively Tehran wields this tool, the broader the international coalition interested in its neutralization becomes.
The regime preserved itself, but paid for survival with the country's devastation, heightened isolation, and the further narrowing of its own social base.
Iranians Caught Between Two Forms of Violence
In this narrative, it is easiest to lose sight of those on whose behalf all sides claim to act - the ordinary citizens of Iran.
The American administration maintains that it is countering a nuclear threat and the regime's aggressive policies. Iranian authorities assert that they are defending the country against foreign intervention.
Yet for a citizen, the outcome looks different.
On one side stand strikes, destruction, unemployment, inflation, communications blackouts, and the dread of renewed war. On the other stand arrests, torture, death sentences, digital surveillance, and the forceful suppression of any protest.
Iranians find themselves squeezed between external war and internal dictatorship. Crucially, each form of violence reinforces the other.
American bombardments afford the regime a justification for repression. Repression convinces a segment of the opposition to await further American strikes. New strikes fuel nationalism. Nationalism temporarily expands the scope of state authority. Authority uses it for fresh executions.
Thus a closed political cycle takes shape, in which neither military pressure nor a temporary agreement brings the country closer to freedom and stability.
The Ultimate Test for Trump
Following the collapse of the June memorandum, US President Trump is left with three options.
The first is to continue the military campaign, anticipating that additional damage will force Tehran to accept harsher terms. Such a path may weaken Iranian military forces, but will simultaneously elevate the risk of strikes against Gulf states, American bases, and shipping.
The second is to return to a new temporary deal, once again trading the opening of the strait for a partial easing of the blockade and sanctions. This will offer markets a respite, but merely postpone the next crisis.
The third is to abandon the diplomacy of one-off bargaining and construct a multi-tiered strategy: separately addressing the nuclear program, the navigation regime, regional armed groups, sanctions, infrastructure restoration, and civilian protection.
The third path is more complex. It does not offer an immediate photo opportunity. It demands the involvement of the IAEA, Gulf states, European nations, Pakistan, Oman, and other intermediaries. It will require phases, verifications, guarantees, automatic consequences for non-compliance, and a precise understanding of which concessions are reversible and which are not.
Yet only such a process can transform a ceasefire into a political order.
A Signature Does Not Replace Victory
US President Trump has demonstrated an ability to compel the world to follow negotiations. He is capable of shifting the atmosphere, shattering diplomatic inertia, forcing allies to pay more, and compelling adversaries to discuss what they previously refused to address.
Yet attention is not strategy. Pressure is not architecture. A memorandum is not peace.
The Iranian regime survived the strikes because Washington attacked its capabilities without grasping its mechanism of survival. Tehran retained power because external war allowed it to frame internal violence as the defense of the state. The June deal temporarily silenced the guns, but left unaddressed every question that rendered a new war inevitable.
Trump sought to conclude an agreement that would affirm his reputation as a master dealmaker. Instead, he obtained a document that demonstrated not the strength of his method, but its limit.
In international politics, the victor is not the one who first announces a deal. The victor is the one who creates conditions under which a return to war becomes disadvantageous, internal repression politically toxic, and a violation of commitments far too costly.
The Versailles memorandum created no such conditions.
It merely bought a few weeks.
And when the paid pause expired, the war returned with a weaker Iran, a more brutal regime, costlier oil, and even slimmer prospects for a lasting peace.