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The final war or final deal: Why the MoU?

  • Robert Inlakesh Robert Inlakesh
  • Source: Al Mayadeen English
  • 18 Jun 2026 12:05
  • 2 Shares
6 Min Read

"Israel" is left with one of two options: try to linger on and delay the inevitable implosion of their expansionist project, or sign a deal with the Palestinians in order to allow for a State of Palestine to come into existence.

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  • US-Israel Iran strategy has backfired, forcing a shift from war pressure to uneasy diplomacy (Illustrated by Zeinab al-Hajj; Al Mayadeen English)
    The US-"Israel" Iran strategy has backfired, forcing a shift from war pressure to uneasy diplomacy (Illustrated by Zeinab al-Hajj; Al Mayadeen English)

The Israeli-US plot to inflict "regime change" upon Iran has been turned into a strategic failure of historic proportions – in the end, Washington and Tel Aviv were forced to confront the reality. The newly signed Memorandum of Understanding is either a gateway to a final deal or simply another strategy to buy time. 

Forty days of all-out war, followed by two months of dead-end negotiations, led to two final options: Submit to a deal that works heavily in Iran’s favour or keep on fighting until the end. What ultimately comes of this equation will completely reshape West Asia and perhaps geopolitics globally.

US President Donald Trump had tried every single avenue to pressure the Islamic Republic of Iran into surrender. He suddenly found himself in a new phase where the walls were closing in and decided to make a diplomatic move. The Iranians managed to reunite their allied fronts across the region, taking de facto ownership of the Strait of Hormuz, while proving they can fight the world’s top military superpower to a standstill.

If you were to listen to the rhetoric coming from the White House, it was like hearing a radio broadcast from a parallel universe. According to Trump, Iran was defeated all the way back in March, its military is destroyed, nobody knows who is running the country, it has no air defenses, no missiles left, no navy, and is on the verge of collapse. But quite frankly, nobody bought his nonsensical ramblings.

Beneath the egotistical exterior is a system that was running out of gas and whose operator was in panic. 

In order to accurately assess the situation, we have to factor in precisely why the US leader is managing this war so incredibly poorly. The Trump administration is not composed of competent and experienced individuals; it's a who’s who of Israeli Lobby shills and hardline ideological fanatics – a tech billionaire’s dream administration. While the Israeli Lobby and other lobby groups have for long had sway over American presidents and foreign policy, it has never been this severe.

Donald Trump exemplifies this through his total incompetence and constant inability to say no to the Israelis when it matters the most. There is, after all, a reason why no other US president agreed to go to war with the Islamic Republic upon the request of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, even when Iran was far less prepared for it militarily.

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Finding out the hard way, the US president found himself caught in a quagmire– if he escalated the war, then the entire region would go up in flames, but if he backed out, he would face the wrath of the same billionaire class that put him in power to begin with.

The Zionist regime can’t defeat the Iranians alone, nor does it believe that the US will defeat Tehran conventionally. Yet, the Israeli leadership does not want to give up, for if they fail, then the Iranians will become the dominant regional power and the “Greater Israel Project” will not be able to succeed.

Therefore, they are only really left with two actual options, both involving the United States: The first is a fight to the death that could go so far that nuclear weapons become involved; the second is a large-scale attack on Iranian infrastructure.

The second option is more likely to be favoured by the Israelis than the first, and its goal will be to continue battering Iranian civilian infrastructure until the Israelis can’t take the punishment coming back its way any longer. For the US, this would represent a catastrophe, because the Iranians have long pledged to wipe out the entire region's oil and gas infrastructure, even going after water desalination and power plants if it comes down to it.

For Washington, this means their Gulf allies will be destroyed. Keep in mind that the Trump administration previously bragged about the alleged Trillion that the Gulf Arab States had pledged to invest in the United States. All of that is gone overnight, and a global economic meltdown would be underway. Trump personally has a lot of investments in the Gulf, which means sacrificing this too.

The Israelis, on the other hand, want the Arab Gulf States weakened. This is for the very same reason they threaten Turkiye constantly – they do not want any potential competitors. Tel Aviv doesn’t even like other regional nations, who are their allies, to get the latest US fighter jets. So, the hypothetical annihilation of rich Gulf States doesn’t likely bother them at all.

As long as the primary goal is achieved, they will be happy. They want a weakened and battered Iran, an Islamic Republic that is susceptible to future color revolutions, one that can no longer impose deterrence equations. But the Americans were facing an economic tidal wave and had no good options in front of them.

If a deal is signed on the terms of the Iranians as a result of the MoU, the Israelis have been strategically defeated. The war that began on October 7, 2023, would have been completely lost for them, and they will only have two options available to them: try to linger on and delay the inevitable implosion of their expansionist project, or sign a deal with the Palestinians in order to allow for a State of Palestine to come into existence. Realistically, the so-called “Two-State solution” is their only hope of long-term survival. All of this assumes they won’t simply blow the deal up before it can come to fruition.

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect Al Mayadeen’s editorial stance.
  • United States
  • US-Iran talks
  • Israel
  • US-Israeli war on Iran
  • US-Iran MoU
  • US-Israeli aggression on Iran
  • Iran
Robert Inlakesh

Robert Inlakesh

Political Analyst, Journalist, and Documentary Filmmaker.

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