_{Deranged maniac Donald Trump threatening to “blow up” conservative Sultanate of Oman; looking on, State Secretary Rubio thinks, “no, I said Cuba, not Iran, you idiot,” even Armageddonist War Minister Hegseth looks concerned for his master’s health, but probably only because he wants to blow up a lot more than just one country.}

By Michael Karadjis

It seems close to certain that the US and Iran will agree to the Memorandum of Understanding to lift their dual closures of the Strait of Hormuz and embark on a 30 or 60-day period of negotiations over the key issues. If this happens – unless the humiliated Trump regime suddenly decides to lash out with one last bout of desperate bombing to look tough, or makes some hair-brained attempt to “seize Iran’s enriched uranium” out of sheer desperation – then this is a complete defeat for the US war.

The US did bomb the southern Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas in “self-defence” while a high-level Iranian delegation was in Qatar busy trying to negotiate the deal, but at this stage these one-off’s appear to be face-saving stalling tactics – Iran knows not to trust the US at all, but probably also knows Trump is exhausted and knows that a return to war would likely only increase his humiliation.

However the claim that this is also a defeat for Israel is in my view wildly overstated – but the fact that the US was forced to shove aside Netanyahu’s pleas for more war in favour of Gulf Arab pleas to desist and stick with the negotiation track may be indicative a longer-term trend that will be problematic for Israel.

Let’s recap. The Strait was open when Trump and Netanyahu launched their aggression on February 28. Following the April 7 ceasefire, Iran fully opened the Strait on April 17 (waiting for the Israel-Lebanon “ceasefire” declaration), and, acknowledging this, Trump declared it to be “a great and brilliant day for the world.” Naturally, Iran expected that the US would reciprocate by ending its recently imposed blockade from outside the Strait, in the Oman Gulf and the Arabian Sea. Instead, Trump continued his unilateral blockade. So, 24 hours later, Iran reimposed its closure.

Therefore, ever since then, calls by Trump on Europe or China or anyone to help force Iran to “open the Strait,” and western media or government commentary about how to deal with the problem of Iran’s hold on the Strait, have been inconceivable nonsense – the way to get Iran to release its closure was simply for the US to end its own.

Then on April 27, Iran again put forward a proposal for both countries to reopen the Strait and end the war, and put the discussion on substantive issues off to a second stage of negotiations. Trump responded that Iran had “offered a lot but not enough,” and again rejected the offer.

Thus the Strait has remained closed since April 17 – one and a half months – due to the US alone. Period. So if the US agrees to this now, all the ongoing massive damage to the world economy has been due to the US position, with absolutely nothing to show for it – a total defeat for the US.

In fact it seems a little worse than that, because while from what we can glean from the various reports, Iran has agreed that the number of ships and tankers passing through the Strait will be restored to its pre-war level, it still insists that it “manage” this traffic through the Strait; if the US accepts this, it will be accepting a stronger Iranian position than it could have had on April 17 or April 27. It remains unclear whether this is just a bargaining position for Iran. In fact, it has been setting up its proposed “toll” mechanism and a number of countries have began paying it, but has apparently said it will temporarily lift the toll until fully ready – which may be a way of saying it is a bargaining position.

Of course, in the upcoming negotiations over the real issues, Trump might be able to claim some relative “victories” – in the end it is all in the wording and the interpretation, we’ll see – but even if he does, there’s no way of knowing such gains could not have been made if the blockade had been lifted on April 17.

The substantive issues

Of these other issues, the major one is Iran’s stockpile of 440 kilograms of highly enriched uranium. In the Iran nuclear agreement (the JCPOA) signed by the Obama administration in 2015, Iran sent its then stockpile to Russia. Trump of course tore up that agreement in 2019, despite Iran sticking to the low enrichment levels of the agreement only suited to civil nuclear energy, which is the reason that Iran began enriching to 60 percent again, as a means of pressure. During the Oman negotiations in February before being interrupted by Trump’s surprise aggression, Iran agreed to dilute this uranium to the 3.67 percent civil power level, under international supervision, and is ready to do that again. In addition, Russia, China and Pakistan have all offered to take the enriched uranium (presumably to dilute it in their country and send back the low-level uranium), but at this point Iran is insisting it remain in Iran and Trump is insisting it goes to the US. Possibly, both are ambit claims pending other issues.

On enrichment itself, Iran absolutely insists that it has the right in principle to enrich uranium at the level for civil energy and had already agreed in February to inspections, while the US has been insisting, this year and last, on zero enrichment in Iran; that Iran can import nuclear fuel for its civil program. It seems likely that the US will concede on this, or there will simply be no deal; but if it does, it is once again a total US defeat. To accept the deal, the US has demanded a 20-year Iranian moratorium on enrichment; Iran has offered 5 years. Possibly an agreement somewhere in between will be reached. As there was no such temporary moratorium under Obama’s JCPOA, perhaps Trump can claim some victory if Iran agrees to something like 10 years – but nothing to exactly justify the hell of the last three months to anyone with a brain.

Iran wants all of its frozen assets released and for the end of all US sanctions as part of any deal. Whether the US will agree to lift all sanctions in one go is questionable, but Iran will certainly, and rightly, draw a red line under the release of its illegally frozen assets. Iran also rightly demands compensation for the enormous war damage caused by the illegal US-Israel aggression, but it is notoriously difficult to force powerful states to compensate their victims. It is possible that the release of its frozen assets and the end of sanctions – especially on its oil – may be enough for Iran to accept that there will be no reparations; once again, the more fully sanctions are released the less Iran is likely demand reparations – the unfrozen assets can be used to begin reconstruction. This is also tied in with Iran’s tollgate system on the Strait – Iran has justified charging a toll as a way to get raise funds for reconstruction.

It seems very difficult for the US to come out of this a victor – but perhaps not impossible to spin whatever the outcome is. It will need very good spin. When Trump ripped up Obama’s JCPOA, there was no logic behind it. If the aim was limiting Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the JCPOA did a stirling job. If it was about the interests of the US ruling class, destroying the JCPOA was in direct defiance of this; US mega-corporations were ready to jump into the Iranian market in large numbers until cut off by Trump. There really was little more than being a tool of the wing of the US ruling class most connected to Israeli interests, perhaps the US military industry, and his own desire to show that an Obama policy could only be bad. But by doing this, Trump trapped himself – whatever comes out of the current disaster he has to show it is “better” for the US than the JCPOA, which is very difficult, as well as being “better” than terms agreed to in June 2025 and February 2026, before being bombed mid-negotiation both times. And to show that the degree of “betterness” can justify massive killing and the destruction of the world and US economy.

Greater Israel and the war in Lebanon

Finally, Iran demands an end to the war “on all fronts,” meaning Lebanon. Last time, the ceasefire went ahead on April 7, but Iran did not open the Strait until April 17, demanding the ceasefire be applied to Lebanon as well first. However, the “ceasefire” there has made no difference – Israel has killed over 600 Lebanese in the last 6 weeks of “ceasefire” in daily attacks, and it hangs onto some 10 percent of southern Lebanon, where it has been meticulously destroying towns and villages in their entirety, while displacing one fifth of Lebanon’s population northward. While it is facing fiercer than expected resistance from Hezbollah, it seems clear that, for Israel, this expansion of Greater Israel northwards is very much an unstated goal of setting the region on fire on February 28.

It therefore seems unlikely, based on this record, that the application of another statement about ending the war in Lebanon will make any difference. Even in the unlikely event that Israel did completely cease fire, unless the agreement forced it to withdraw from Lebanon, the war remains a net gain for Greater Israel. Put simply, before the war, Israel remained in occupation, in defiance of the late 2024 ceasefire, of five small spots along the border, but these were basically fortified hilltops of perhaps 5-10 square kilometres in total; now it controls some 10 percent of the country’s area. Meanwhile, under the cover of war, Israel has also stepped up its aggression in southern Syria, has greatly increased its land grab in the West Bank, and remains in possession of 58 percent of Gaza while the Gazan population remains cut off from the world in a devastated land.

Now, as the news suggests the US and Iran have reached agreement on the memorandum (bearing in mind such an announcement has been made countless times before), Israel has dramatically upped the ante: on the same day, Netanyahu casually announced that Israel’s military control of Gaza would be increased from 58% to 70% of the tiny strip, cramming 2 million Palestinians into an even smaller area of total devastation; and evacuation orders were given to all Lebanese residents south of the Zahrani River, some 20 miles north of the Litani which was Israel’s declared goal until now, and greatly expanded its military offensive.

I therefore think that claims that this is a defeat for Israel miss the point. “Israel aimed to overthrow the Iranian regime and destroy its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and none of this has been achieved.” Really. Israel aimed to blow up the region to advance the cause of Greater Israel. “Regime change” was always a crock. Sure, Israel would like to impose Reza Pahlavi, the Shah’s son, in order to light up a gigantic IRGC-Basej insurgency to create even more chaos throughout the region, but to even get him into power would require a million or two US ground troops at the outset, so this was never going to happen. It was recently revealed that the hair-brained scheme was not to bring Pahlavi to power, but former hard-line Iranian president Ahmediejad – again, presumably because he is such a divisive figure among the Iranian mullocracy and IRGC that they imagined it would lead to civil war and effective collapse of the state. And of course the last thing Israel – or the US – ever wanted was a democratic revolution in Iran.

Nuclear? If all this goes ahead, the Iranian nuclear program will be contained – just as it was by Obama’s JCPOA, which Israel vigorously campaigned against until they got their Trump tool to rip it up. So it is clear that Israel is not in the least motivated by fear of a non-existent Iranian nuclear weapons program. Rather, that is useful propaganda for preventing the normalisation of the Iranian regime, which would remove it as Israel’s key ideological bogeyman to justify its own extremism for over three decades; indeed, that is another reason I doubt Israel really aimed to bring in Pahlavi – Israel still needs Iran for these purposes, but one weakened by Israeli military action is even better value politically. Ballistic missiles – the CIA estimated Iran still had 70 percent of its pre-war stock; destroying 30 percent may be what Israel will have to live with. It knows very well that Iran has never used them against Israel except in response to Israeli attack.

In other words – I don’t believe a word of it. It looks to me more like a double victory, of Greater Israel in its region, and Iran in the Gulf.

At the same time, if Trump goes ahead, it means that in contrast to February 28, he is now ignoring Israel’s advice (ie, restart the war, do lots more bombing and killing as great cover for its own plans) and instead listening to the advice of Saudi Arabia and Gulf Arab states. Trump’s claim that he was about to restart bombing Iran on Tuesday, May 19 – a move that had strong Israeli backing – but held off at the urging of Gulf Arab states Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) who Trump claimed “believe a deal “will be made, which will be very acceptable to the United States of America, as well as all Countries in the Middle East, and beyond” (though some Gulf officials were not aware of the imminent plan to attack Iran …), makes this point clear. While Saudi Arabia and Qatar are known to have been opposed to the war and certainly to it restarting, Trump’s inclusion of the UAE, if true, is odd given its trenchant alliance with Israel and its markedly more hawkish position on Iran and the war following large-scale Iranian strikes on the UAE, but this may signify a lack of faith in anything Trump can do even to this craven regime.

This is not great for Israel’s overall regional hegemonic ambitions. “Sharing” the region with a number of sub-imperial projects like those of Saudi Arabia, Turkey and indeed Iran might sound very Trumpian, especially given a medium-term Trump preference to withdraw from the region and thus leave it to a number of marshals, but is anathema to Israel; Israel needs to ensure it remains number one regional power in US eyes. Why should the US continue to forever deliver massive quantities of dollars and weaponry to Israel while it pushes the most extremist agenda if this extremist agenda is not demonstrating its ability to completely dominate the region, if Israel is just one of a number of powerful regional deputies? The push for Greater Israel is driven by both internal Zionist logic and by this need to demonstrate absolute regional hegemony, but this overextension in its immediate vicinity may not improve its ability to dominate further afield, without a continued large-scale US presence; and as the war has shown, even this US presence in a most aggressive form has proven inadequate.

The emergent geopolitical ‘third force’ and Trump’s comedic Abrahamic moment   

This raises a bigger question of the regional geopolitics going on behind the scenes, which is too big to be covered here (but watch this space). Essentially, despite the war, and despite the US and Israeli ambitions in launching it, the already existing major regional split between a Saudi-Qatari-Turkey-Pakistan regional bloc and an emerging “hexagonal” alliance between Israel and the UAE (like  Israel, a regional revisionist power shooting well above weight), India, Greece/Cyprus and Ethiopia was not healed by the war against Iran and the expected (and planned for) Iranian counter-attacks against the Gulf states, but rather, continued barely abated.

This geopolitical angle was brought into sharp, and comic, relief, just before this final MOU push when Trump, out of leftfield, demanded that Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Pakistan etc join the Abraham Accords as part of a prospective peace deal with Iran. While it is not exactly news that Trump has lost his mind over being humiliated by Iran in his stupid, illegal and barbaric war, this is really at another level. Trump still seems to imagine that he has any cards with which to mandate that others go right out of their way to serve the US, and Israel, for the great service they have done!

According to his tweet, “it should be mandatory that all of these Countries [ie, those involved in negotiations between the US and Iran], at a minimum, simultaneously, sign onto the Abraham Accords. Those Countries discussed are Saudi Arabia, The United Arab Emirates (already a Member!), Qatar, Pakistan, Türkiye, Egypt, Jordan, and Bahrain (already a Member!).” Trump stressed this was compulsory, that he was “mandatorily requesting that all Countries immediately sign the Abraham Accords,” and that “If they don’t, they should not be part of this Deal [ie, the prospective Iran deal] in that it shows bad intention.” Not to be outdone by himself, Trump also suggested that these “Great Leaders … would be honored, as soon as our Document is signed, to have the Islamic Republic of Iran as part of the Abraham Accords.”

Trump raised the demand during a phone call involving these leaders to discuss the US-Iran negotiations mediated by Pakistan, and the reaction was silence; Trump had to ask if anybody was still there. Imagine, they thought they were there to discuss how to end the war that Trump and Israel had plunged the region into, and here he is telling them to normalise with that same Israel, after the genocide in Gaza, the growing annexation of the West Bank, the terror and occupation in Lebanon and the ongoing attacks and occupation in southern Syria. Like, why? Why would they?

Trump ought to be thinking about how to save his arse and get out with some kind of deal that does not leave him completely humiliated. Of course, as shown above, the problem is that that is very difficult. He is already being attacked from the right by the Wall Street Journal and some very pro-Israel Republicans, like Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz, who want no concessions and just want endless war and killing, while the vast majority of Americans who were against the war from the beginning will be further vindicated, so Trump thinks he can put some icing on the rancid cake by getting a bunch of countries who have never shown any interest in normalising with Israel to suddenly do so, because a defeated, humiliated US with no cards tells them to!

Saudi Arabia reacted predictably with a version of the statement it has been making for years (around a hundred times), that any peace agreement with Israel is contingent on an “irreversible pathway” to the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. Despite fantasies from both many western leaders and media, and also from many pro-Iranian ‘Axist’ voices, there are reasons that Saudi Arabia has not moved an inch towards the Abraham Accords in a full six years since they were signed by the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan. It has nothing to do with how “reactionary” a state is; that is just a balderdash kind of “anti-imperialist” analysis for dummies. If being “reactionary” were the yardstick for wanting to normalise with Israel, then Iran itself, and the Taliban regime next door in Afghanistan, would be leading the rush to normalise along with the Saudis. Quite simply, the unofficial head of the Sunni Muslim world and the Guardian of the two Holy Mosques in Mecca and Medina is not going to normalise with the regime in occupation of the Holy Mosque in Al-Quds, lest the Saudi royal family be overthrown. Saudi ruler Mohammed bin-Salman (MBS) is an utterly ruthless tyrant (something he shares with the rulers of Iran), but also a modernising nationalist leader who has transformed his state and makes decisions based on Saudi interest, and being an Israeli appendage is not one of them. No, it has nothing to do with any actual sympathy for Palestine (indeed, MBS openly says as much).

Qatar has said nothing, probably just too bemused, but no, the state where the Hamas headquarters is situated, that hosts al-Jazeera, is the unofficial leadership of the regional Muslim Brotherhood, and that was bombed by Israel last year, is even less likely to suddenly sign up. Pakistan rejected the demand, stating “Pakistan is under no compulsion to adhere to any such demand,” stressing the Abraham Accords have no relation to the deal it is trying to mediate between the US and Iran. Khawaja Muhammad Asif, Pakistan Defence Minister, was even blunter, stating “Personally, I don’t think we should join any such accord that clashes with our fundamental ideologies. How will you sit down with those people whose word cannot be trusted even for a single day?”

These reactions led to further comic relief when batshit-crazy warmonger Senator Lindsey Graham was deluded enough to imagine he had cards with which to threaten these states. “If you refuse to go down this path as suggested by President Trump, it will have severe repercussions for our future relationships and make this peace proposal unacceptable. Further, it would be seen by history as a major miscalculation.”

The China connection and its long-term significance

In fact, it was this ‘third force’ in between Israel and Iran that got the peace – Pakistan’s role as mediator was actively backed by the Saudi-Qatari-Turkey bloc, and Oman. And even more significantly, behind this bloc was the US’s key global rival, China. China is commonly referred to as Iran’s ally. That it is, kind of. But it is also Pakistan’s ally – 80 percent of Pakistan’s weaponry comes from China, while China buys far more of its oil from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states than from Iran, sells them weapons (including during this war), is involved in major economic projects throughout the Gulf, while the Saudis and others have also began selling some of their oil in Chinese Yuan – and China agrees with the Gulf rather than Iran on the question of the Strait. Meanwhile, the Saudi-Pakistan defence treaty has now brought major Chinese weapons systems into Saudi Arabia via the Pakistani ‘back-door’ – weapons the US has banned the Saudis from buying themselves as a condition for Saudi participation in the F-35 fighter jet program.

During the war, China became the silent and unofficial head of this bloc of powerful regional capitalist states who seek a position independent of both Israel and Iran – and even after being hit by Iran during this war, they tend to see Greater Israel as the greater threat to regional stability, while their own sub-imperial projects see a two-state “solution” to the Palestinian issue as infinitely preferable for regional capitalist stability than a Greater Israel expanding into Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and eviscerating Gaza. And in this position, China was seen to be behind the scenes promoting a negotiated settlement while the US showed that its approach led to turmoil and destruction, while its bases in the Arab Gulf states made them targets rather than offering them protection. In the longer term, this US defeat may be even more significant, as an important landmark in the rise of Chinese imperial power at the expense of a decadent US empire.