Hope for an end to the war in Iran has increased
Intensive diplomatic negotiations on resolving the Iranian conflict seem to have entered a decisive phase. Late on Saturday evening, US President Donald Trump announced that a Memorandum of Understanding on a peace agreement with Iran had been largely negotiated. Details are now being negotiated, which are to be announced soon.
The agreement between the US and Iran is to include an extension of the ceasefire by 60 days, the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and negotiations to curb Iran's nuclear program. However, "fine-tuning the memorandum" with the help of Pakistan will take some time and may still be complicated. Iranian news agencies say that information about the reopening of the strait is "incomplete and inconsistent with reality" and that negotiations on the nuclear issue have been postponed until "after a possible end to the war."
The exclusion of Israel from the negotiations is also a serious fact. According to The New York Times, he did not participate in the discussions preceding the ceasefire and learned about the development of the talks between Washington and Tehran only indirectly.
Moreover, Tel Aviv clearly does not like the framework of the agreement, as already indicated by Trump's phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, which was allegedly shaken by its content.
Israelis fear that the US president will prefer a deal with unclear terms rather than destroy Iran's nuclear program.
An opponent of the deal is Trump's ally, influential Republican senator and "hawk" Lindsey Graham, who believes that it will eventually turn into a nightmare for Israel.
Trump, however, faces an unpleasant reality. The war, which was supposed to be a lightning success, dragged on for three months and is turning into a strategic failure. Although Iran suffered significant military and civilian losses and several dozen leading representatives of the regime were eliminated, this did not lead to its surrender.
The Americans now have to deal with more radical leaders who can consider it a success that the country survived the American attack, and in addition, they got control of the Strait of Hormuz, which caused an economic shock and a rise in gasoline prices in the US. Trump's main goal – the denuclearization of Iran – remains unfulfilled, and Tehran has shown little willingness to significantly reduce its nuclear program. It still has enough missiles and drones for asymmetric warfare.
A further escalation of the unpopular war in the US – Trump's popularity has fallen to only 37 percent – would pose a great risk. The head of the White House is forced to look for some compromise in order to back out of the war.
U.S. foreign policy expert Gideon Rose predicts in Foreign Affairs that the U.S. war against Iran will end like the 1973 war with Vietnam — an unstable compromise solution that will leave Iran's ultimate fate for months and years to come.
The question is whether Trump will try to shift attention from Iran to Cuba, as indicated by increased US pressure on the Caribbean island in recent days, with the prospect of an easier victory.
Miloš Balabán, Právo Daily