Godwyn, Trump and the Peace: America Has Found Its Churchill: On the War with Iran

I have been given a purported copy of the Memorandum of Understanding that the Americans will sign this week in Geneva to end their war with Iran. I cannot assure you that it is genuine: we must all wait until the Americans themselves release the document—not that they seem in any hurry to do so. However, what I have has the look of a document that has been carefully drafted and is intended to form part of an international agreement. Assuming it is genuine, you do not need my legal advice to assure you that America has suffered a notable and humiliating defeat. It began this war by murdering much of the Iranian Government while it was known to be discussing a false American offer. It continued with barbarous attacks on Iranian schools and general civilian infrastructure. When these failed to bring an Iranian collapse, it turned to threats of nuclear annihilation. For three months, the world was subjected to an endless barrage of ludicrous demands and boasting by men who seemed to regard an oil shock, attended by starvation in the Global South, as a collateral benefit. Now all else has failed, and the American armed forces have been shown as a bloodthirsty rabble equipped with weaponry more expensive than useful, and its leadership an Epstein Syndicate variously bribed or blackmailed into blundering aggression, the Americans are accepting Iranian regional dominance and preparing to hand over almost unlimited reparations for wanton damage to Iran.

For the rest of the world, this is excellent news. Since at least the end of the Cold War, American power has been the principal source of international instability. The destruction of Iraq, the devastation of Libya, the prolonged ruin of Syria, the endless interventions conducted under one humanitarian pretext after another, have left entire regions poorer and less secure than before. The world has not suffered from a shortage of American power. It has suffered from an excess of it. Swollen with pride, the Americans have spent nearly half a century calling themselves “the indispensable nation.” I will assume for the moment that America really is a nation rather than an agglomeration of hyphenated and second-rate nationalities, and suggest that it is a most dispensable place.

However, let us turn to the purported Memorandum itself. Here is the text:

1. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States, together with their allies in the current war, declare upon the signing of this Memorandum of Understanding an immediate and permanent end to the war on all fronts, including Lebanon, and undertake that from now on they will not launch any hostile action against each other, and will refrain from the threat or use of force against each other. The final agreement will confirm the provisions of this Article and the remaining Articles.
2. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States undertake to respect each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and to refrain from interfering in each other’s internal affairs.
3. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States undertake to negotiate and reach a final agreement within a maximum period of 60 days, extendable by mutual consent.
4. Immediately upon the signing of this Memorandum of Understanding, the United States will lift the naval blockade and prevent any interference or obstruction against the Islamic Republic of Iran, and restore traffic within a maximum of 30 days to its full capacity; the traffic of ships shall be proportional to the pre-war volume of traffic on the part of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The United States also undertakes to withdraw its forces from the surrounding areas within 30 days after the final agreement.
5. Upon signing this Memorandum of Understanding, the Islamic Republic of Iran will immediately take steps to ensure that the movement of merchant ships from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman and vice versa is resumed within 30 days to the pre-war volume, taking into account the need for the removal of technical obstacles and the neutralization of mines by Iran.
6. The United States undertakes, together with its regional partners, to create a comprehensive plan agreed upon by both parties for the rehabilitation and economic development of the Islamic Republic of Iran, while ensuring financing of at least $300 billion. The implementation mechanism of this plan, as part of the final agreement, will be formulated within 60 days.
7. The United States commits to ending, on a schedule to be agreed upon as part of the final agreement, all types of sanctions currently facing the Islamic Republic of Iran, including resolutions of the United Nations Security Council and the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and all unilateral U.S. sanctions, both primary and secondary.
8. The Islamic Republic of Iran reiterates that it will never produce nuclear weapons. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States have agreed that the fate of enriched material and the fate of all other mutually agreed nuclear-related issues, including Iran’s nuclear needs, will be adequately addressed in a final agreement; the final agreement will confirm the provisions of this Article.
9. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States agree that, pending a final agreement, they will maintain the status quo: Iran will maintain the status quo on its nuclear program, and the United States will not impose new sanctions on Iran or strengthen its forces in the region.
10. The United States undertakes that immediately after the signing of this Memorandum of Understanding, and until the date of the lifting of sanctions, the United States Treasury Department will issue waivers for exports of Iranian crude oil, petrochemical products and their derivatives, and all related services, including banking, insurance, transportation, and the like.
11. The United States undertakes that, in light of the progress of negotiations towards a final agreement, frozen or restricted funds and assets of the Islamic Republic of Iran will be released and made fully available. These funds, whether held in the master account or transferred, will be used for any final beneficiary payment determined by the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran and will be fully available for use. The United States undertakes to issue all necessary permits and licenses on this basis.
12. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States agree that an implementation mechanism will be established to oversee the successful implementation of and future commitment to the Final Agreement.
13. Following the signing of this Memorandum of Understanding, and upon receipt of assurances regarding the commencement of implementation of Articles 4, 5, 10, and 11 of this Memorandum of Understanding, and the continued implementation of these steps, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States will enter into negotiations for a Final Agreement solely with respect to the remaining Articles.
14. The final agreement will be approved through a binding resolution of the UN Security Council.

The significance of these clauses speaks for itself. Even so, I will repeat that the Americans did not start this war in hope of peaceful coexistence. They began with demands for submission. The rhetoric from the White House spoke of obliteration and regime change. The reality shown in this document is wholly different.

The most striking provision is Clause 6. The United States and its allies undertake to finance Iranian rehabilitation and development with no less than $300 billion. One may employ whatever diplomatic language one likes. One may speak of reconstruction, assistance, investment, or development. The substance remains unchanged. A state that has achieved its objectives does not promise hundreds of billions of dollars to the government it has just attempted to overthrow. Great powers do not usually pay tribute to defeated enemies. The defeated enemy is normally expected to pay them.

Nor is this the only remarkable concession. Clauses 4 and 5 effectively acknowledge a reality that Washington spent months trying to deny. The Strait of Hormuz cannot be opened by American aircraft carriers or presidential social-media proclamations. It can only be opened with Iranian cooperation. That fact alone represents a strategic defeat. The United States entered the conflict assuming it could dictate events in the Gulf. It emerges acknowledging that the most important maritime chokepoint in the world functions only with Tehran’s consent.

The nuclear provisions are no less revealing. For years, American politicians insisted that Iran’s nuclear programme represented an existential danger requiring extraordinary measures. Yet Clause 8 contains no dismantlement of facilities, no destruction of centrifuges, no surrender of enriched material, no inspection regime comparable even to the old JCPOA. Instead, these matters are deferred to future negotiations. The war that was supposedly necessary to eliminate the Iranian nuclear threat appears to have concluded without eliminating it.

The sequencing of the agreement is perhaps the most humiliating feature of all. Clause 13 requires the implementation of key American concessions before negotiations on the remaining issues even begin. The blockade is lifted. Economic restrictions are relaxed. Assets are released. Shipping is restored. Only afterwards do discussions continue. This is not how victorious powers behave. It is how governments behave when they need an exit from a conflict they can no longer sustain.

One should not romanticise Iran. Nor should one imagine that the decline of American power will usher in a millennium of peace. China is not a flawless power. Russia is not governed by saints. International politics remains what it has always been: the competition of states pursuing their interests.

Even so, there is reason for cautious satisfaction. The world is generally safer when no government imagines itself entitled to bomb, sanction, blockade, invade, or overthrow any state that resists its wishes. The erosion of American hegemony may therefore provide something that the post-Cold-War world has conspicuously lacked: restraint. For thirty-five years Washington has largely acted on the assumption that it could do as it pleased. Iraq, Libya, Syria, Serbia, Afghanistan, and now Iran each reflected the same underlying belief. The assumption was that resistance would collapse and that American power would always prevail. The text of this Memorandum suggests that assumption may finally have encountered reality.

But no discussion of America’s defeat can be complete without some discussion of Donald Trump. From praising him to the skies, the Israelis have now taken to calling him another Neville Chamberlain. I think this wholly unjust. He has far more in common with Winston Churchill, another man whose appetites exceeded his abilities, and who brought those who believed in him to grief. Yes, what did Churchill achieve? Out of office, he was bribed into crying up a war that served no British interest, and indeed betrayed every valid British interest. In office, he kept that war going until a nation that had no longer been hegemonic at its outset, but was still arguably the most powerful in the world, was a bankrupted wreck, loaded with debt and under the joint management of political fantasists and asset strippers. All throughout, he called himself a patriot, and may have believed he was. The real difference between him and Donald Trump is that he was not in public a gross and vulgar buffoon. But that, I suppose, is because a country is best ruined by frontmen who represent that country’s peculiar moral tone. Britain in 1940 was a great nation. America never has been a great nation, and is certainly not one today.

In closing, I thank the Chinese. Its caution and the purity of its English suggest exactly where this document was drafted.