One month after the official – virtual – signing of the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding – which is what a document that will not exactly go down in history was officially called -, the 14 points that allowed a temporary end to the war and begin the final negotiation, Iran and the United States can only today confirm the failure of the negotiated path in the middle of the period that the text gave the parties to reach a definitive agreement.
The pact, which Washington and Tehran currently consider dead, committed the United States to immediately lift its naval blockade against Iran and completely end it within 30 days, restoring maritime traffic proportionally to pre-war levels. The Islamic Republic, for its part, agreed to facilitate, free of charge and for two months, the safe transit of commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz.
None of this has been achieved a month after the signing of the memorandumand for ten consecutive days, US forces have severely hit Iranian territory, especially the south and the Hormuz area, both military, civil and energy infrastructure, and the regime of the mullahs has responded, following the same scheme as during the initial phase of the conflict, attacking its neighbors’ territory in an increasingly indiscriminate manner.
The agreement, which was born miraculously fragile, was broken just two weeks after signing. On July 7, after Iranian attacks against ships in Hormuz and the US air responsethe conflict was reactivated with force. The goal to negotiate a final agreement on the nuclear program in 60 dayss – which would expire around August 20 – seems, today, completely utopian. After the breakdown of the memorandum, oil prices skyrocketed again: on July 13, crude oil rose more than 9% in a single day, and this week Brent is still hovering around $88-89.
To the economic dimension, we must add the human cost of the current escalation, since the United States has recognized almost a hundred wounded soldiers since July 7 in addition to the three died on Jordanian and Iraqi soil. Military spending has also skyrocketed: Pentagon officials have acknowledged before Congress a cost that went from $11.3 billion in the first six days to about 30,000 million by the end of Junein the midst of growing social rejection in the country. According to the state agency IRNA, citing the Iranian Ministry of Health, more than 50 people were killed and at least 517 injured between June 27 and July 19.
However, the parties know that they are condemned to have to sit down to negotiate sooner or later. This Monday, the Iranian Minister of the Interior, Eskandar Momeni, arrived in Islamabad at the head of a high-level delegation – which included the director of the Iranian state oil company – with the aim of reactivating diplomatic channels between Tehran and Washington. But for now, Trump is willing to persevere on the military route and yesterday he once again rejected the possibility of a ceasefire by discarding all the mediation proposals presented. in the last hours through Qatar and Pakistanincluding a ten-day truce.
In the strictly military chapter, the US Central Command (Centcom) carried out at dawn on Tuesday a new round of bombings against military command centers, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launching positions and air defense systems. of the regime in southern Iran.
New attacks
For its part, Iran responded in the last day with new attacks against the territory of three of its neighbors in the region: Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan. The Kuwaiti authorities – the emirate has been one of the most punished in recent days – this Tuesday accused Tehran of attacking in the last hourss several power and desalination plants.
Furthermore, in Hormuz this Tuesday there were new attacks on ships – an oil tanker was hit near the coast of Oman – while the United States maintains its own naval blockade: according to its Army, it has prevented the passage of seven merchant ships and disabled another. And on the day the naval blockade announced by Yemen’s pro-Iran rebels began, those known as Houthisa large Chinese oil tanker that had left the Saudi port of Yanbu was forced to turn around in the southern Red Sea after threats from Shiite insurgents to attack ships calling at or setting sail from Saudi ports, according to the Bloomberg agency.
Meanwhile, in Lebanon its armed forces began yesterday to deploy in the town of Zawtar al Gharbiyein Nabatieh, one of the three “pilot zones” agreed with Israel for the disarmament of Hezbollah in the south of the country, as confirmed by the military institution. The deployment coincides with the gradual withdrawal of Israeli troops from that area, supervised by the Military Coordination Group for Lebanon (Lebanon, Israel and the United States). The move comes as Lebanese President Joseph Aoun concludes a four-day visit to Washington, meeting with Trump to push for a broader withdrawal. Israel, however, continues to occupy other areas despite the ceasefire in force since June.