ANALYSIS: Vance and the Iran deal "foundation" — cautious optimism or strategic blindness?

A memorandum signed in a rush

The world held its breath in mid-June 2026. The United States and Iran initialed a 14-point memorandum of understanding aimed at ending the armed conflict between the two countries, reopening the Strait of Hormuz, and laying the groundwork for a future nuclear agreement. The planet applauded. But analysts asked far more uncomfortable questions: is this a lasting peace or merely a diplomatic ceasefire dressed up as a historic victory?

American Vice President JD Vance defended the agreement with a measured but telling enthusiasm. He described the memorandum as a "founding document" — a foundation, a starting point, nothing more. And it is precisely this verbal caution that deserves careful unpacking. When an American vice president himself calls his agreement a "foundation," he is implicitly acknowledging that the building does not yet exist.

Market euphoria versus expert sobriety

From the moment the deal was announced, oil markets reacted instantly: the Brent crude price dropped, with the Strait of Hormuz officially reopened for a minimum of 60 days without transit fees. This reopening represents considerable economic relief — roughly 20 percent of the world's oil passes through this strategic chokepoint. But experts in nuclear non-proliferation were reading between the lines of a deliberately vague text.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) immediately demanded a verification system. Its director general, Rafael Grossi, declared from Tokyo: "What is undeniable is that we have an MOU. This MOU specifically states that the nuclear part of the memorandum will be supervised. To supervise, we must inspect. There is no other way." The nuance is critical: the MOU exists. But its concrete application remains a disputed territory between Washington and Tehran.

I am not naive. When Grossi speaks of a "war of declarations" between the United States and Iran in the very week after signing, that is not a good sign. It signals that both parties are reading the same document in two different languages — and not just in the linguistic sense.

"Founding document": choosing words carefully

JD Vance was explicit about what the MOU represents — and what it does not. "The MOU is a much more generic document than the JCPOA. It is truly a founding document: let's open the strait, stop shooting at each other, and see if we can build a nuclear agreement," he declared, according to available accounts. This formulation is striking for its disarming honesty. He does not claim to have solved the Iranian nuclear problem. He says: we have stopped the immediate hostilities.

There is a fundamental difference between a ceasefire agreement and a nuclear non-proliferation treaty. The 2015 JCPOA at least had the merit of technical precision: detailed clauses on centrifuges, enriched uranium stockpiles, inspector access. The 2026 MOU was signed in the urgency of an active conflict. It contains no equivalent of those technical safeguards. According to Vance himself, it is a starting point — which means everything still remains to be negotiated on the most crucial question: will Iran ever possess the nuclear bomb?

Trump's central promise and its limits

President Donald Trump publicly stated that "Iran will never possess a nuclear weapon" — a strong, categorical declaration designed to reassure Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Western allies. Simultaneously, Iran insisted that no commitment had been made regarding new inspections of the sites damaged by American-Israeli strikes. This blatant contradiction, arising the very day after the signing, raises serious questions about the true solidity of the agreement.

The IAEA finds itself cast as an unwilling arbiter. Grossi clearly stated: "There is a kind of war of declarations here." This diplomatic formula barely conceals a cruder reality: Washington says one thing, Tehran says the opposite. And between the two, the UN's nuclear verification agency tries to navigate with the limited tools this ambiguous memorandum gives it.

Trump has always operated by proclamation: assert something loudly enough until it becomes true. That has occasionally worked. But with the Iranian nuclear file, rhetoric does not neutralize centrifuges.

60 days of relief for the global economy

The reopening of the Strait of Hormuz is, without question, the most tangible and immediate victory of the agreement. Both parties committed to keeping the strait open and free of transit fees for at least 60 days. For global trade, it is a breath of fresh air: Persian Gulf oil can again flow freely toward Asia, Europe, and the Americas. Pressure on energy prices eased instantly.

But 60 days is a short window. Historically, Iran has always used the threat of closing Hormuz as a negotiating lever. That capacity for pressure did not vanish with the signing of an MOU. The Iranian navy retains its regional deployment capabilities. The maritime drones and anti-ship missiles Iran developed over years of sanctions are still in place. Peace at Hormuz holds, for now, on the good faith of both parties — a precarious variable in a context of centuries-old mistrust.

A massive economic unblocking as an incentive for peace

To understand why Tehran agreed to sign, one must look at the numbers. According to reports, the deal includes the unfreezing of 24 to 25 billion dollars in frozen Iranian assets held abroad, plus the prospect of 300 billion dollars in reconstruction. These colossal sums explain Iran's economic motivation. A country exhausted by years of sanctions, war, and isolation sees in this memorandum a chance for economic survival.

The question is whether this economic incentive will be sufficient to maintain Iranian internal cohesion around the agreement. The Revolutionary Guards, the hardest factions of the Tehran regime, have not abandoned their strategic objectives. They accepted a pause. Not a capitulation. And in Iranian politics, the difference between a pause and a capitulation can be measured in months.

You cannot build a lasting peace on financial incentives alone. Money can buy a ceasefire. Rarely a deep geopolitical transformation. The Iran of 2026 is not the Germany of 1945.

The IAEA caught between two fires

IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi has a delicate position to hold. He must affirm that the MOU gives him a verification mandate — otherwise the agreement loses all credibility — while acknowledging that both parties have divergent readings of the document. His insistence that "to supervise, we must inspect" is almost tautological, but revealing: he has to restate the obvious because the obvious is contested.

Iran has been explicit: it refuses inspector access to the sites damaged by the American and Israeli strikes of 2026. Washington, for its part, insists those sites are precisely the most important ones to inspect. This standoff over access to the struck sites is the real test of the agreement. If the IAEA cannot send inspectors there, the MOU becomes a toothless document — a statement of intentions dressed up as a treaty.

The JCPOA's unlearned lessons

The 2015 JCPOA, for all its imperfections, at least had the merit of technical precision: the number of authorized centrifuges, the maximum stockpile of uranium enriched to 3.67 percent, a calculable "breakout" timeline. Those parameters had been negotiated over two years by teams of experts. The 2026 MOU was signed in the urgency of an active conflict. It contains no equivalent technical safeguards.

Barack Obama himself expressed doubts, publicly declaring that he was "skeptical" that a Trump deal with Iran would be "significantly different" from the JCPOA. That is a remark heavy with meaning: it suggests that the Trump administration, after torpedoing the JCPOA in 2018, risks ending up rebuilding something less solid than what it destroyed.

There is a biting irony in watching Trump — the man who tore up the JCPOA proclaiming he could do better — sign a document that his own vice president describes as "much more generic" than the Obama agreement. You can call that realpolitik. You can also call it a retreat dressed up as a victory.

Israel: between relief and deep suspicion

Israel welcomed the agreement with cautious satisfaction. The partial destruction of Iranian nuclear capabilities during the American-Israeli strikes of 2026 represented a real strategic gain. But Tel Aviv knows better than anyone that Iran has rapid reconstitution capabilities. The Iranian nuclear program is not just facilities — it is know-how, engineers, a doctrine. The bombs did not erase the project.

Israel's position is clear: an agreement without robust inspections is worse than no agreement at all. Because an agreement without inspections gives Iran international legitimacy while it quietly reconstitutes its capabilities. Benjamin Netanyahu was discreet in his public statements — a sign that behind-the-scenes negotiations continue between Washington and Jerusalem over minimally acceptable guarantees.

The proxy militias: the front no MOU resolves

The memorandum stipulates that hostilities must cease everywhere — including in Lebanon, where fighting between Israel and Hezbollah persisted after the signing. This is one of the agreement's most fragile points. Hezbollah is formally a distinct organization from the Iranian state, even though Tehran funds and arms it. Iran can claim to honor the MOU while allowing its proxies to keep operating.

The architecture of militias Iran has built over decades — Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, Hashd al-Shaabi in Iraq — is not resolved by a 14-point memorandum signed in haste. These forces have their own dynamics, their own interests, and sometimes their own agenda. A peace agreement between Washington and Tehran does not mean the end of tensions across the entire region.

The Middle East is not negotiated in closed rooms. It is negotiated in the alleyways of Beirut, in the corridors of the Iraqi parliament, in Houthi missile bases in Yemen. Vance can call it a foundation. The militias will keep laying bricks wherever it suits them.

From torpedoed JCPOA to improvised MOU

The irony of Trump's trajectory in this file must be acknowledged. In 2018, Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the JCPOA, calling it a disgraceful deal. His administration imposed a campaign of "maximum pressure" on Iran, tightening sanctions until economic strangulation. The result? Iran accelerated its uranium enrichment, broke through the JCPOA's ceilings, and pushed its nuclear program further than ever before.

In 2026, following an armed conflict and an air strike campaign, Trump signs an agreement that his own vice president describes as less precise than the JCPOA he had sabotaged. It is a lesson in geopolitical humility, even if the administration refuses to frame it that way. Maximum pressure worked up to a point — and then Iran crossed too many red lines for conflict to be avoidable. Now everyone retreats to the negotiating table.

Trump, the West's necessary evil

One can blame Trump for having created the conditions of the chaos he is now trying to resolve. One can also acknowledge that his unpredictability ultimately forced Iran to sit at the table after years of refusal. The Iranians knew that Trump is capable of authorizing strikes that his more cautious predecessors would never have launched. That credibility of escalation — costly as it is — may have been what made the agreement possible.

The West needs this deal to hold. The stability of Hormuz, the price of energy, the security of Israel, American influence in the Gulf — all of it depends on the solidity of what is, for now, a fragile MOU. Trump may be the only American president capable of selling this agreement to a conservative base conditioned to loathe anything resembling a concession to Iran. That is his utility. And it is a real utility, however uncomfortable it may be to admit.

Trump as peacemaker with Iran — that is a sentence I could not have written in 2020 without laughing. In 2026, it is the ambiguous reality we inhabit. The world does not conform to ideologies. It zigzags.

UANI and the Republican hawks

The organization United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) reacted to the agreement with immediate skepticism. It compiled the reactions of numerous analysts and officials pointing to the memorandum's shortcomings. The central concerns: the absence of a verifiable dismantlement of the nuclear program, the limited duration of the Hormuz opening, and the unresolved question of access to the sites damaged by the strikes.

Even within Republican ranks, voices have been raised against an agreement seen as too accommodating. Senators and representatives closest to Israel demanded stronger guarantees. This internal American pressure is a factor the Trump administration will have to manage throughout the negotiations to come — because the MOU is only a foundation, and every brick of the building ahead will need to pass Congressional scrutiny.

Iran's internal divisions: hardliners versus pragmatists

On the Iranian side, factional tension is equally real. The Revolutionary Guards hold considerable influence over the Islamic Republic's foreign policy. They accepted the MOU as a tactical necessity, not an ideological conversion. The core question — whether Iran must renounce the nuclear option permanently and verifiably — has not been settled within the regime.

Moderate voices, aligned with the Iranian president and the technocrats of the system, see in the agreement an opportunity for economic reconstruction and diplomatic opening. But those moderates do not control the Guards. And the Guards, for their part, look at what happened in Ukraine — where a country without a nuclear weapon was invaded — and draw their own conclusions about the ultimate value of nuclear deterrence.

That may be the most brutal lesson of the war in Ukraine for Iran: Ukraine surrendered its nuclear arsenal in 1994 in exchange for guarantees on paper. We know how that ended. The Iranian Guards have a long memory.

Beijing and the Hormuz equation

China is the great unmentioned importer in this deal. It imports massively from Iran despite American sanctions, and therefore has a direct interest in the stability of Hormuz. The reopening of the strait benefits it directly, at minimal diplomatic cost. Beijing had to negotiate nothing. It collects the dividends of an American-Iranian peace it did not build.

More fundamentally, China sees in this deal a strategic opportunity: an Iran under less American pressure is an Iran more available to deepen its partnership with Beijing. The 25-year China-Iran strategic partnership, signed in 2021, provides for massive investment in infrastructure and energy. If sanctions ease, China will be front of the line to embed itself even more deeply in the Iranian economy.

The systemic threat this deal poses to the Western order

The West must be careful not to fall into a trap of its own optimism. A normalized Iran that aligns its interests with Beijing while maintaining sub-surface nuclear capabilities is a troubling combination. The MOU stops the immediate hostilities. But it does not change the long-term architecture in which Iran, Russia, China, and North Korea form an axis of resistance against the Western liberal order.

The West remains the center of the world. But that center is being challenged from every direction simultaneously. Addressing crises one by one — Iran here, Ukraine there, South China Sea elsewhere — without seeing the systemic coherence of this challenge means missing the forest for the trees. The Iran deal may be good news in the short term. Over the long term, the fundamental question remains entirely open.

We tend to celebrate every peace agreement as an absolute victory. But in a world where China is building military islands, Russia is bombing European cities, and North Korea is testing missiles, every partial agreement is also a page turned before the chapter is finished.

Twenty-four billion dollars as a compliance lever

The unblocking of 24 to 25 billion dollars in frozen Iranian assets is both a major American concession and a potential pressure tool. These funds — immobilized for years in overseas accounts under the weight of sanctions — represent considerable leverage. Washington could theoretically condition the gradual release of these assets on Iranian compliance over nuclear inspections. That is the mechanics proposed by proponents of the deal.

The problem: once the first disbursements are made, the leverage erodes. Iran receives money, rebuilds its economic infrastructure, and finds itself in a stronger position for the subsequent negotiations. It takes remarkable diplomatic discipline — and tight transatlantic coordination — to maintain pressure while delivering the incentives. Does the Trump administration have that discipline? The question is legitimate.

The 300 billion in reconstruction: a real carrot

The prospect of 300 billion dollars in reconstruction may be the most powerful factor for keeping Iran within the agreement. A country economically drained, its infrastructure damaged by years of sanctions and conflict, has a visceral need for reconstruction. Western — and Chinese — companies are waiting at the door to invest if sanctions fall.

This potential reconstruction creates a convergent interest: Iran wants the money, investors want the market, Western governments want stability. That is the kind of economic architecture that can underpin political peace. But this architecture will take years to build — years during which the Iranian nuclear program will need to remain under active surveillance. The challenge is not to start the peace. It is to sustain it over time.

Three hundred billion dollars is an extraordinarily large carrot. But even the biggest carrot does not change the nature of the rabbit. Iran remains a deeply ideological state. Money can buy compliance. Not conversion.

North Korea as a distorted mirror

The history of negotiations with states pursuing illicit nuclear programs is instructive — and deeply discouraging. North Korea signed framework agreements, accepted moratoria, traded concessions for food aid and energy. Each time, it continued its program in the shadows. Today it possesses operational nuclear weapons and intercontinental missiles. That is the nightmare scenario the negotiators of the Iran deal must absolutely avoid.

The difference with Iran — and it is a real one — is that Iran has suffered direct military strikes on its nuclear installations. Those strikes caused significant material damage. That creates a different negotiating context than North Korea, which never endured a direct attack on its program. Iran knows that blatant non-compliance could trigger further strikes. That credibility of force is a real deterrent factor — for as long as Trump remains in office.

Libya as a positive model — to be handled with care

The Libyan case of 2003 is sometimes cited as a positive model. Muammar Gaddafi voluntarily dismantled his weapons of mass destruction program in exchange for diplomatic and economic normalization with the West. The Libyan program was effectively neutralized — but Gaddafi was toppled and killed in 2011, sending a terrifying message to all authoritarian regimes contemplating nuclear disarmament.

This Libyan precedent haunts Iranian calculations. The strategists of the Revolutionary Guards have undoubtedly studied what happened to Gaddafi after he disarmed. The argument that "surrender your weapons and you will be safe" has limited credibility when the most recent model of voluntary disarmament ended facing an improvised firing squad on a Sirte roadside.

The history of disarmaments is not read in diplomatic schools. It is read in the archives of those who believed in promises. Ukraine. Gaddafi. And now we are asking Iran to trust us. That is an enormous bet. Perhaps the only one available.

What happens on day 61?

The agreement provides for a 60-day reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. On day 61, what happens? The MOU does not automatically specify what occurs when this period expires. Both parties will need to have made sufficient progress in negotiations to justify an extension. In the absence of progress on the nuclear question, Iran could technically resume its threats against the strait without formally violating the agreement.

This 60-day deadline creates artificial pressure that can be useful — it forces negotiators to advance — or dangerous if negotiations stall. Time-constrained diplomacy is sometimes productive, sometimes catastrophic. The Iranian file has already been pockmarked with missed deadlines and crossed red lines. Caution is essential against any optimism not grounded in concrete verification mechanisms.

Possible scenarios between now and year end

Three plausible trajectories emerge. Optimistic scenario: negotiations advance, the IAEA gains access to the key sites, a stronger verification framework is adopted, and Hormuz remains open in a context of progressive de-escalation. Median scenario: negotiations stall, the MOU is tacitly extended without agreement on inspections, and the crisis is managed day by day. Pessimistic scenario: an incident — a new Israeli strike, a militia provocation, a naval incident in the Gulf — derails the process and brings the region back to the edge of the abyss.

The third scenario is not the most probable. But it is not improbable either. The region harbors too many non-state actors, too many volatile internal dynamics, and too many contradictory interests for peace to hold on the sheer goodwill of two distant capitals.

Peace agreements rarely die violent deaths. They often die of exhaustion — from an accumulation of small unsanctioned infractions, deferred deadlines, aborted inspections, until nothing is left but an empty shell that everyone keeps calling an agreement out of convenience.

Reclaiming its role as guarantor of multilateralism

The European Union was largely absent from the negotiations that led to the MOU. That is a consequence of the Trumpian dynamic: when Washington takes matters into its own hands, European allies find themselves on the sidelines. But Europe has a crucial role to play in the phase that follows — verification, reconstruction, and the long-term institutional framework.

The three major European powers — France, Germany, the United Kingdom — maintained the JCPOA framework even after the American withdrawal in 2018. They have direct experience negotiating with Tehran and credibility as interlocutors distinct from Washington. It is precisely this relative independence that can be useful in the months ahead to fill the MOU's gaps and build a more robust verification framework.

Financing reconstruction without financing rearmament

If sanctions progressively ease, Europe will need to find mechanisms to participate in Iranian reconstruction without those funds ending up in the hands of the Revolutionary Guards or financing armament programs. This is technically possible but politically delicate. Financial flow control mechanisms, transparency conditions imposed on companies investing in Iran, and close coordination with the IAEA will all be indispensable.

Europe also has a stake in the stability of Hormuz for its own energy security. A closed or unstable strait drives up energy prices in Europe, weakening economies already under pressure. Playing an active role in consolidating this agreement is therefore also a defense of its own economic interests. That is not geopolitical altruism — it is European rationality.

Europe has an unfortunate habit of finding itself a spectator at the major negotiations that determine its own future. The JCPOA was negotiated with it. The MOU was negotiated without it. The next phase must include it — or the West will increasingly speak with less than one voice.

The Budapest Memorandum as a collective scar

It is impossible to analyze a new nuclear deal without invoking the Budapest Memorandum of 1994. Ukraine had then agreed to surrender its Soviet nuclear arsenal — the world's third largest — in exchange for security guarantees signed by Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Twenty years later, Russia annexed Crimea. Eight years after that, it launched a full-scale invasion.

The Budapest guarantees were on paper. The reality came in Russian tanks. That memory tears through modern nuclear diplomacy: how can you give credible guarantees to a state renouncing nuclear weapons when the Ukrainian example looms so large? Iran is watching. North Korea watched. And every time a Western negotiator promises "solid guarantees" in exchange for nuclear disarmament, he runs into that wall of entirely legitimate historical mistrust.

Zelensky and the signal sent to the world

Volodymyr Zelensky has been one of the clearest voices on this equation: Ukrainian resistance has held because the West provided weapons, not just promises. The signal sent to the world by the war in Ukraine is ambiguous for negotiations with Iran: yes, the West can support a country under attack. But no, guarantees on paper do not protect.

For the Iran deal to hold, it will need verification mechanisms that bear no resemblance to Budapest. Concrete, binding mechanisms with automatic consequences for violations. The automatic sanctions regime — the famous "snapback" — is the key instrument. The question is whether the 2026 MOU provides for it in its next negotiating phase, and whether Washington will have the discipline to activate it if necessary.

We will not build peace with Iran by repeating the mistakes of Budapest. Ukrainians are still paying, in blood, the price of naive trust in paper guarantees. If this deal with Iran has no teeth, it will only be another Budapest. And the next war will be even closer.

The vice president's communication decoded

Vice President Vance is not an idealist. He has a legal background, a sharp analytical intelligence, and a realistic political vision. When he describes the MOU as a "founding document" and hastens to spell out its limits, this is not modesty — it is expectation management. He calibrates enthusiasm to avoid finding himself six months from now having to explain the failure of an agreement he himself had called historic.

This calibrated rhetoric is professionally honest. It is also politically useful: by calling the agreement a "foundation," Vance gives himself room to maneuver. If negotiations advance, he can claim the foundation held. If they fail, he can say no one built properly on a good foundation — without it being his fault. That is masterful political communication, not naivety.

Cautious optimism or strategic blindness: the provisional verdict

The answer to the title question is nuanced. Vance's optimism is not blind. It is structurally limited. It is the optimism of a man who knows he is working with imperfect materials on a difficult construction site. Strategic blindness, if it comes, would not come from the vice president — it would come from the media and commentators who transform a ceasefire memorandum into a perpetual peace treaty before the IAEA has accessed a single contested nuclear site.

This deal deserves support — because it stops real hostilities and opens Hormuz — while being followed with absolute analytical rigor. The West has an interest in making it work. But having an interest in making it work is not a reason to believe it will work automatically. It is a reason to work hard to make it work.

Vance is right about one thing: this foundation exists. Now the real work begins. And in this Middle East of every contradiction, the real work is always the most thankless — the work no one sees in press conferences, the work done in the dark corridors of technical negotiations at three in the morning.

An imperfect peace is better than a perfect war

The American-Iranian memorandum is imperfect. It is ambiguous on inspections. It is time-limited on Hormuz. It does not contain the technical safeguards of the JCPOA it is supposed one day to replace. And yet it represents something concrete: the guns have fallen silent. Tankers are moving again through the Gulf. Families of soldiers and civilians on both sides are breathing. That is not nothing.

The task now is to transform this fragile foundation into solid architecture. This will require diplomatic patience, constant pressure on nuclear verification, and seamless coordination between Washington, European capitals, and multilateral agencies. The IAEA must enter the sites. Frozen assets must be released progressively against measurable compliance. And the 60-day window on Hormuz must lead to something more permanent.

The world holds — provided the West stays vigilant

The West has survived far graver trials. It will survive this imperfect deal — provided it does not mistake it for a definitive victory. The center of the Western world holds. Its values, its institutions, its capacity to maintain a liberal order based on law — all of that holds. But this center only holds through the constant effort of those who defend it.

This deal with Iran is a page being turned. Not the last chapter of the book. China is watching. Russia is watching. North Korea is watching. They are all looking for cracks in the Western facade. The best answer to their gaze is to build on this foundation with the rigor and determination the situation demands. Vance said "foundation." Now let us build.

I keep my skepticism close, but I refuse to let cynicism paralyze me. This deal is imperfect. This deal is fragile. This deal is also the best chance we have had in twenty years of avoiding a nuclear war in the Middle East. I would rather work with a flawed foundation than contemplate the ruins of a collapsed building.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a columnist and analyst. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. I claim analytical clarity, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

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Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a critical, contextual synthesis based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

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