EDITORIAL: Three hundred billion for Iran: the price of a false victory

EDITORIAL: Three hundred billion for Iran: the price of a false victory

Introduction: when the number becomes the symbol

A figure that shocks and raises questions

300 billion dollars. That is the figure that circulated in dispatches of June 23, 2026 concerning the framework of the US-Iran agreement — the famous Islamabad MoU documented by Ground News. Three hundred billion in reconstruction for Iran. Three hundred billion for a regime that has financed Hezbollah, armed the Houthis, supplied drones to Russia to strike Ukrainian cities, and whose leaders still chant "Death to America" at official rallies. This figure demands an explanation. This editorial attempts to provide one — honest, without complacency.

Let us begin with what this figure is not. It is not an American check made out to the Iranian regime. Nor is it a budget approved by Congress. According to available analyses, the $300 billion represents an estimate of potential foreign investment — oil, infrastructure, industry — that could flow into Iran if sanctions were lifted and the economic environment became attractive again. It is a projection, not a wire transfer. The distinction is crucial. But in political communication, projections quickly become realities, and realities become commitments.

Why this figure hurts regardless

Even if the $300 billion is a projection and not a direct financial commitment, it reflects a troubling strategic fact: lifting sanctions on Iran means restoring its access to considerable oil revenues and international investment flows that would economically strengthen a regime that has withstood two decades of economic pressure while continuing to finance destabilizing actors. The legitimate question is: what behavior are we rewarding? And the honest answer is: behavior that has not fundamentally changed.

Iran has reduced — under pressure — certain of its most visible activities. It has moderated its weapons deliveries to the Houthis after American and Israeli strikes. It has toned down some of its most explosive declarations. But the foreign policy structure that produces these behaviors — the Revolutionary Guards, the revolutionary ideology, the will to challenge the American order in the Middle East — remains intact. And it is this structure that the $300 billion in reconstruction would contribute to perpetuating.

Iran and Russia: an armed complicity that complicates everything

Iranian drones over Ukrainian cities

It is impossible to analyze the US-Iran agreement without mentioning a fact that should weigh heavily on the Western conscience: Iran supplied Russia with Shahed drones that struck Ukrainian cities, civilian infrastructure. These drones have killed civilians, destroyed homes, deprived millions of Ukrainians of water and electricity. This complicity in the Russian aggression against Ukraine is not an allegation: it is a documented reality, confirmed by debris analyses.

In June 2026, while American and Iranian negotiators meet in Switzerland, Ukrainian forces continue to face Iranian drones. This simultaneity must be named. It does not mean that negotiations should not take place. But any agreement that does not include an explicit clause on halting weapons deliveries to Russia is an incomplete agreement that finances its own victims.

Behavioral conditionality

Demanding a change in Iran's regional behavior in exchange for economic concessions is described as utopian by certain analysts. These same analysts would be the first to condemn an agreement that Iran would use to finance even more destabilizing operations in the region. There is a contradiction in this position: one cannot afford to demand the behavior, but one cannot afford to ignore it either.

The pragmatic answer is an architecture of progressive conditionality: lifting sanctions in stages, each stage conditioned not only on progress on the nuclear issue but on measurable signs of reduced support for armed proxies. This is not perfect — these signs are difficult to measure. But it is incomparably better than sanctions relief without any behavioral conditionality.

Global dependence on Hormuz: Iran's real leverage

Twenty percent of the world's oil through 21 kilometers

To understand why the United States accepts making significant concessions to Iran, one must understand the reality of Hormuz. Every day, approximately 21 million barrels of oil — representing 20% of global consumption — transit through this strait, only 21 kilometers wide at its narrowest point. Added to this are the massive volumes of Qatari LNG. A temporary closure of Hormuz would trigger a price surge capable of triggering a global recession.

This vulnerability is Iran's principal leverage in negotiations. It will not disappear with a nuclear agreement. It will exist as long as global economies depend on hydrocarbons. But the agreement can at least create a mechanism that makes the use of this leverage more costly for Tehran — by ensuring that any untimely closure would automatically trigger a return of the heaviest economic sanctions.

Limited alternative routes

Alternative routes exist — the Petroline pipeline in Saudi Arabia, the Habshan-Fujairah pipeline in the UAE — but their combined capacities cover only a fraction of normal Hormuz volumes. In the event of a prolonged closure, these alternatives would not be sufficient to prevent a major supply crisis. This reality explains why the US Fifth Fleet has been positioned in the region for decades, and why all successive American administrations have given absolute priority to freedom of navigation in the strait.

The direct communication line on Hormuz provided for in the road map is therefore more than a diplomatic gesture. It is a risk management mechanism for the global economy. Even declared adversaries have an interest in maintaining communication to prevent tactical incidents from spiraling into an economic crisis that would strike their own economies as well.

What Europe must demand from the US-Iran agreement

European interests in the negotiations

Europe has direct interests in the outcome of US-Iran negotiations, even if it is not at the table in Switzerland. Economically, lifting Iranian sanctions would open markets to European companies — oil, construction, transportation, agri-food. These commercial interests are real and legitimate. From a security standpoint, an Iran with advanced nuclear capabilities is a much closer threat to Europe than to the United States.

These two interests — economic and security — can point in opposite directions. An imperfect nuclear agreement that opens Iranian markets will serve short-term economic interests while weakening long-term security. Europe must clearly decide on the order of its priorities and make this position known to Washington — not to block an agreement, but to ensure it is robust enough to deserve European support.

The lessons of the JCPOA for the European position

Europe experienced the American withdrawal from the JCPOA in 2018 as a betrayal. It had invested politically and economically in that agreement, encouraged its companies to invest in it, and found itself exposed to American counter-sanctions when Trump withdrew. This traumatic experience should make Europeans more demanding about the institutional robustness of the new agreement — not less demanding.

The legitimate European demand is therefore for an agreement anchored in a durable multilateral structure — a Security Council resolution, a formal treaty with precise obligations, an automatic snapback mechanism. These elements would reduce the agreement's vulnerability to changes in American administrations and would allow Europe to associate itself with it in full knowledge of the facts.

Regional actors facing the agreement

Israel between vigilance and unilateral action

Israel is the regional actor most determined to prevent any agreement that would economically strengthen Iran without dismantling its advanced nuclear capabilities. The Netanyahu government maintains a doctrine that considers an Iran with nuclear weapons capability to be an existential threat. This position reflects a real strategic analysis: an Iran capable of producing a weapon in a matter of weeks fundamentally changes the regional deterrence balance, even without using it.

Israel possesses military capabilities to strike Iranian nuclear sites — and this threat, whatever its degree of operational realism in a given scenario, weighs on the calculations of all actors. An agreement that Tehran perceives as humiliating can trigger reprisals that threaten Israeli security. An agreement that is too lenient can push Israel to act unilaterally. This Israeli sword of Damocles is a permanent factor that negotiators must manage.

The Gulf and the potential arms race

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other Gulf monarchies are watching US-Iran negotiations with deep suspicion. These countries see an economically strengthened Iran as an even more dangerous regional adversary. And some Saudi officials have suggested that if Iran retained advanced nuclear capability, the kingdom might seek to develop its own capabilities — triggering a chain proliferation in the world's most unstable region.

This threat of regional proliferation is the strongest argument for demanding a genuinely robust nuclear agreement. An agreement that does not dismantle Iranian advanced centrifuges does not resolve the proliferation problem — it aggravates it by implicitly legitimizing the maintenance of these capabilities, and by giving other regional actors a pretext to develop their own. The robustness of the Iranian nuclear agreement is therefore a matter of security not just bilaterally but regionally and globally.

What the $300 billion would actually fund

The mechanics of financial flows in Iran

To understand why the $300 billion are problematic even if they are primarily foreign private investments, one must understand the economic structure of Iran. The Iranian state — controlled in large part by the Revolutionary Guards and their affiliated companies — captures a considerable proportion of all economic flows in the country. Pasdaran companies hold dominant positions in oil, construction, telecommunications, transportation. Foreign investments in these sectors necessarily pass through partnerships with these entities.

In other words, investing in Iran — even in civilian infrastructure projects — partly amounts to capitalizing entities controlled by the IRGC. This is not a conspiracy theory: it is the documented reality of Iranian political economy. Western nations that would push their companies to invest in Iran under an agreement would objectively contribute to strengthening the economic power of the Revolutionary Guards — the same ones who plan destabilizing operations in the region.

Iranian oil and global markets

The most directly quantifiable dimension of the "$300 billion reconstruction" is the lifting of oil sanctions. Iran possesses the world's fourth largest proven oil reserves and second largest natural gas reserves. Before the maximum sanctions of 2018, it exported approximately 2.5 million barrels per day. Today, it exports illegally — primarily to China — approximately 1.5 million. Restoring legal exports of 2.5 million at $75-80 per barrel represents approximately $70 billion in annual revenues for the Iranian state — a substantial portion of which will inevitably go toward financing exactly the activities that pose a problem.

The pressure on global oil markets from Iran returning to maximum exports is also a factor to consider. In the short term, more supply means lower prices — which benefits Western consumers. But durably low prices weaken allied producer countries — Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iraq — and reduce their capacity to maintain investment levels in their own defense and stability. Immediate economic benefits carry medium-term strategic costs.

The temptation of the "deal" and its precedents

The JCPOA legacy: lessons unlearned

The 2015 JCPOA is the precedent one cannot ignore in analyzing any new agreement with Iran. That agreement had real qualities: it had effectively reduced Iranian enrichment, it had strengthened IAEA inspections, and it had produced a stabilization of tensions during its period of implementation. But it also had structural defects that led to its collapse: the sunset clauses that allowed Iran to resume its activities after a few years, the gaps regarding military sites, and the absence of a sufficiently robust automatic sanctions mechanism.

The American withdrawal from the JCPOA in 2018 certainly worsened the situation. But it is dishonest to pretend that the agreement was perfect and that the entire problem stems from the American withdrawal. The JCPOA was an imperfect first step. What the new agreement must be is a far more demanding step — on inspections, on advanced centrifuges, on Iran's regional behavior. If the new agreement reproduces the same defects dressed up in $300 billion, it will produce the same results, only worse.

Trump and the art of the deal: victory before substance

One must name this risk specific to the current administration: Donald Trump has a particular relationship with diplomatic agreements. For him, an agreement is above all a narrative — something one can announce as a "historic victory," photograph with smiles and handshakes, and present to his electoral base as proof of his superior negotiating skills. The content of the agreement is secondary to its appearance of success.

This logic has produced agreements that held — the Abraham Accords are a relatively positive example. It has also produced declarations of victory on very fragile foundations — such as the repeated announcements on North Korea, whose nuclear program continued to advance during and after talks with Kim. Iran is infinitely more sophisticated diplomatically than North Korea and will not hesitate to exploit the Trumpian preference for appearance over substance.

The conditions for a real agreement

What is non-negotiable

An agreement with Iran that merits the name must contain non-negotiable elements. First: the verified destruction or transfer abroad of the advanced IR-6 and IR-8 centrifuges, which reduce the warning time to a matter of weeks. Second: IAEA inspections without delay at any designated site, including military ones. Third: an automatic snapback mechanism for sanctions in case of violation — with no possible veto — triggered within 30 days following a non-compliance finding certified by the IAEA.

Fourth, and this is the most difficult point: a verifiable Iranian commitment to halt weapons deliveries to non-state armed groups in the region. This commitment must be followed by measurable effects — documented reduction of support for Hezbollah, the Houthis, militias in Iraq and Syria. Without this fourth pillar, the first three allow Iran to sign on the nuclear issue while continuing to destabilize the region by other means. That is precisely what the $300 billion in economic prospects would make possible.

Europe's role in monitoring the agreement

Europe — including France, Germany and the United Kingdom who co-signed the JCPOA — must play an active role in constructing the verification mechanism of the new agreement, not simply in blessing it diplomatically. The E3 have technical expertise on Iranian nuclear issues that the United States must use and not merely tolerate. And they have their own interest in the agreement holding: they are geographically closer to a nuclear Iran than Washington, and the consequences of an agreement's collapse would affect them more directly.

But Europe must also be honest about its motivations: its companies want to regain access to the Iranian market — Total, Airbus, the automotive manufacturers. This economic interest creates a bias toward signing an agreement, even an imperfect one. The role of civil society and European media is to name this conflict of interest and demand that governments place security ahead of short-term commercial profits.

Conclusion: avoiding the false victory

Defining victory by durability, not by announcement

A "false victory" in nuclear diplomacy is an agreement that allows its signatories to announce a breakthrough, temporarily calming markets and public opinion, but that reproduces the conditions of its own failure. The JCPOA was a genuine advance that became a false victory when it collapsed. The agreement taking shape for 2026 can follow the same trajectory if the lessons of 2015 are not integrated.

A real victory would be an agreement that the IAEA can actually verify, that the parties can actually maintain, and that measurably reduces the risk of nuclear proliferation. This is not impossible. Iran has already shown that it can respect agreements when its economic interests are sufficiently tied to them. The question is not whether Iran can honor its commitments. It is whether the agreement creates sufficient incentives for it to do so — and sufficient consequences if it does not.

The moment of truth in 60 days

In 60 days, around August 20, 2026, we will know whether the June 2026 road map produced an agreement or a failure. This text will be reread on that date. If an agreement has been signed, the question will be: does it contain the essential elements enumerated above? If yes, it will deserve to be supported despite its inevitable imperfections. If not, it will deserve to be criticized rigorously, whatever political celebration accompanies it. And if negotiations have collapsed, the question will be who refused the necessary compromises — and to say so clearly, without false diplomatic balance.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency note

My position on Iran and the nuclear agreement

This editorial reflects my personal position: I am profoundly skeptical about the capacity of a nuclear agreement to transform Iran's regional behavior as long as the power structure of the Revolutionary Guards remains intact. I believe that diplomacy is preferable to war, but that a diplomacy that rewards without demanding becomes capitulation dressed up as something else. These convictions are mine and they orient my reading of events. The reader must take this into account when evaluating my arguments.

I have no financial or institutional ties to organizations opposed to an agreement with Iran — no ties to the Israeli lobby, no ties to defense companies, no ties to political parties. My skepticism stems from an analysis of historical facts and Iranian political structure, not from sectoral interests.

What this editorial does not cover

This editorial addresses the general framework of the agreement and does not cover the technical details of the Iranian nuclear program, the specific positions of European partners in the ongoing negotiations, nor the most recent developments that occurred after June 27, 2026. The situation is evolving rapidly and the information available at the time of writing may be incomplete or outdated.

Sources

Primary sources

Ground News — Islamabad MoU: the 14 points of the US-Iran framework agreement — June 23, 2026

WWNO/NPR — The United States and Iran agree on a road map — June 21, 2026

Al Jazeera — US-Iran disagreement on Hormuz and nuclear inspections — June 24, 2026

Al Jazeera — What the US and Iran agreed on during the first day of talks — June 23, 2026

Secondary sources

Washington Times — Divergent narratives on nuclear inspections — June 23, 2026

The Guardian — NATO leaders and American reliability — June 27, 2026