Anadolu via Getty ImagesFor Iran, the deal with the US offers something just as important as a ceasefire: a way to claim that it has not just survived the war without surrendering but has emerged from it stronger.
From the start, Tehran’s core objective was not necessarily to defeat the US and Israel in conventional military terms. It was to come out of the conflict with the Islamic Republic intact, its leadership still functioning and its negotiating position not completely broken.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) – as the deal is known – allows Iran to say it has achieved that.
The document, signed separately by US President Donald Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, sets out a 60-day framework for negotiations over Iran’s nuclear programme but it also confirms an immediate halt to military operations on all fronts, including Lebanon, mutual respect for sovereignty, the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and the lifting of the US naval blockade on Iranian shipping.
The US commitments appear broader. According to the MoU, Washington will begin removing its naval blockade, issue waivers for Iranian oil exports, make frozen or restricted Iranian assets available, work towards easing sanctions and pursue with regional partners a reconstruction and economic development plan for Iran worth at least $300bn (£224bn).
That helps explain why the reaction from Iranian critics has so far been muted. The MoU gives the leadership enough to present the deal as a victory: Iran’s sovereignty is recognised, the blockade is due to be lifted, sanctions relief is on the table and reconstruction funding is explicitly mentioned.
But that silence is unlikely to last.
The most difficult issues have been deferred, not resolved. The future of Iran’s highly enriched uranium, the scale of its enrichment industry and the rebuilding of damaged nuclear facilities will now be negotiated under intense pressure.
That creates a problem for Tehran’s leadership. State media, the Revolutionary Guards, parliament and hardline figures have spent weeks telling their base that Iran defeated the US and Israel. Expectations are now high. Any compromise over enriched uranium or nuclear infrastructure could be portrayed by critics as a concession made after victory had already been declared.
But no compromise could be just as dangerous. If Tehran refuses to move on highly enriched uranium or the future shape of its nuclear programme, the process could collapse and the ceasefire itself may come under pressure. That would strengthen those in Washington and Israel who already argue that Iran has only used the MoU to buy time and could push both sides back towards war.
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of parliament and head of Iran’s negotiating team, has tried to frame the talks in defiant terms. “I am not a diplomat,” he said on state TV, “but I know well how to make America understand.”
That language is aimed as much at Iran’s domestic audience as at Washington. Ghalibaf, a former Revolutionary Guards commander, has to sell the deal to a hardline base deeply suspicious of compromise with the US.
The comparison with the 2015 nuclear agreement is unavoidable. In Washington, some may present the MoU as worse than the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as the earlier agreement was known, arguing that Trump has accepted a framework that gives Iran sanctions relief and economic benefits while postponing the hardest nuclear questions.
In Tehran, however, the danger is different. Hardliners may accuse the government and negotiating team of repeating what they saw as the betrayal of 2015, when President Hassan Rouhani came under attack by MPs, conservative media and political rivals who accused him of making too many concessions over Iran’s nuclear programme.
For Pezeshkian and Ghalibaf, the challenge is to turn a ceasefire framework into a political success before that backlash gathers force.
Iran has gained time, relief from immediate military pressure and the prospect of major economic concessions. It has also avoided the outcome Washington demanded most publicly: total surrender.
But it has not yet secured the final deal. The MoU strengthens Iran’s hand in the short term because the system has survived and Washington has made visible commitments. The risk for Tehran is that the next 60 days expose the gap between the image of victory sold at home and the compromises required to keep the war from returning.
Iran has come out of the war’s first chapter stronger than many expected, but its next challenge may be harder: keeping its own political base behind the process long enough to reach a final deal, without allowing compromise to look like a concession or even a defeat.
