# ESSAY: The Iran-USA 14-point deal — what the text says, omits, and truly threatens

> On June 20, 2026, after weeks of secret negotiations conducted under American and Israeli military pressure on Iranian nuclear sites, the Trump and Pezeshkian administrations formalized a 14-point memorandum of understanding ostensibly intended to end the state of war between the United States, Israel, and Iran. The text — whose terms were publicly summarized by a senior Americ

- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Essay
- Published: 2026-06-27
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/essai-l-accord-iran-usa-en-14-points-ce-que-le-texte-dit-tait-et-menace-vraiment

## Key takeaways

- The memorandum declares a permanent cessation of military activity on all fronts, including Lebanon, and opens 60 days of talks on the nuclear program, the Strait of Hormuz, sanctions, frozen assets and reconstruction.
- The text does not mention ballistic and cruise missiles or proxy groups such as Hezbollah and the Houthis, which the author sees as the core of the disagreement.
- The author calls a 60-day timeline for five complex subjects unrealistic, noting the JCPOA took over 18 months for one subject.
- As a memorandum rather than a treaty, the deal can be cancelled unilaterally, and the author argues Pezeshkian cannot guarantee IRGC compliance.
- The essay criticizes the silence on Iranian drone supplies to Russia and the exclusion of Iranian civil society.

## Introduction: When diplomacy produces a text without real binding constraints

### A historic but substantively hollow memorandum

On **June 20, 2026**, after weeks of secret negotiations conducted under American and Israeli military pressure on Iranian nuclear sites, the **Trump** and **Pezeshkian** administrations formalized a **14-point memorandum of understanding** ostensibly intended to end the state of war between the **United States**, **Israel**, and **Iran**. The text — whose terms were publicly summarized by a **senior American official** during a press phone call, without a complete official version being published — declares an **immediate and permanent cessation** of military activity on all fronts, including **Lebanon**.

The memorandum opens a **60-day negotiating period** on the Iranian nuclear program, the future management of the **Strait of Hormuz**, the lifting of American sanctions, the release of frozen Iranian assets, and a **US-backed reconstruction program** worth **$300 billion**. Both parties signed electronically ahead of a formal ceremony — each with a pre-signature withdrawal clause.

### The fundamental asymmetry of the text: who wants what

For **Washington**, the agreement represents a major political victory for **Trump**, who can present himself as the man who pulled back from the nuclear brink — by engaging **Iran** militarily where **Obama** and **Biden** had preferred pure diplomacy. For **Tehran**, the agreement is an attempt to preserve what can be preserved after devastating strikes on its installations: a diminished but potentially not eliminated nuclear program, an economy given oxygen through sanctions relief, and a crisis exit that avoids total capitulation.

The fundamental problem is that both parties have short-term motivations that could mask incompatible long-term commitments. **Trump** wants an electoral victory. **Pezeshkian** wants to survive politically in a system where the **Revolutionary Guards** control the real strategic decisions. Neither can guarantee implementation of the most binding terms.

*I have long said that Western Iran policy oscillates between two illusions: the illusion that military strikes will solve the nuclear problem, and the illusion that a diplomatic agreement will change the nature of the regime. This memorandum attempts to combine both — and risks inheriting the illusions of each without the advantages of either.*

## The 14 points decoded: What each clause really means

### The cessation of hostilities and its gray areas

The **first point** declares the **immediate and permanent cessation** of military activity on all fronts. This is the most visible clause but also the one whose interpretation diverges immediately: for **Washington**, it implies that **Iran** ceases to fund and arm **Hezbollah**, **Hamas**, Iraqi militias, and the **Houthis** in Yemen. For **Tehran**, the text does not explicitly mention these actors — and Iranian officials have already indicated that their **regional allies** are not part of the negotiation, their autonomy being presented as an independent reality.

**Iranian militias** and **proxies** are precisely the heart of the disagreement. They — not Iranian ballistic missiles, not nuclear bombs — caused the most concrete damage to **Israel** and American interests in recent years. An agreement that ends direct strikes but preserves the proxy infrastructure is not a peace agreement — it is an armed truce.

### The Strait of Hormuz: a hidden global economic stake

The **memorandum** includes the reopening of the **Strait of Hormuz** to maritime navigation — a clause reflecting the fact that **Iran** had effectively threatened or disrupted this strategic passage through which approximately **20% of global oil exports** transit. Normalizing transit is an immediate gain for the global economy and a signal to energy markets.

The agreement also provides for a **future negotiation** on the joint management of the strait — an extraordinarily ambitious proposal that presupposes a level of trust and institutional cooperation the parties manifestly do not yet possess. If **Iran** perceives this clause as a precedent for exercising shared control over one of the world's most strategic commercial arteries, the geopolitical implications could far exceed what **Washington** anticipated.

*Giving Iran any kind of co-management of the Strait of Hormuz would be a monumental geopolitical error. Even in a weakened form, the Islamic Republic would use that legitimacy as a permanent blackmail lever. This is not negotiation — it is handing a pyromaniac the keys to the fire department.*

## What the text omits: The determining absences

### Ballistic missiles: the exclusion that hollows out the deal's security value

The memorandum makes no mention of **Iranian ballistic and cruise missiles**, which constitute the most pressing direct threat to **Israel**, American bases in the region, and **Gulf** allies. **Iran** possesses the most developed ballistic missile program in the **Middle East**, with range capabilities sufficient to strike **Tel Aviv**, **Riyadh**, and American bases in **Iraq**, **Qatar**, and the **United Arab Emirates**.

This exclusion is not accidental. **Tehran** categorically refused to include missiles in the negotiations, presenting them as a pillar of its **conventional deterrence doctrine**. **Washington** accepted this position — presumably to avoid derailing the negotiations — but the result is an agreement that leaves intact the most operationally threatening military component of Iranian power.

### The militias: the presence that dares not speak its name in the text

**Lebanese Hezbollah**, the **Yemeni Houthis**, **Kataib Hezbollah** in Iraq, and the dozens of other pro-Iranian armed groups that form the **Axis of Resistance** are not mentioned in the American summary of the memorandum. **Israel**, which conducted a significant campaign of destruction against **Hezbollah** in preceding years, demands that any regional peace agreement include the disarmament or removal of these forces from its northern border.

The contradiction is glaring: the **Iranian Revolutionary Guards** consider these militias irreplaceable strategic assets that cannot be put on the table without shaking the **Islamic Republic's** security doctrine. **Israel** considers their survival incompatible with its national security. A memorandum that ignores this contradiction does not resolve it — it defers it.

*An agreement that leaves missiles and militias beyond the reach of negotiations is like a peace treaty between two countries that each keep an army pointed at the other. The paper can be signed. The peace does not yet exist. What Trump has obtained is a photo, not a transformation.*

## The 60-day period: A race against the clock or an illusion of process?

### What 60 days are supposed to produce

The memorandum establishes a **60-day negotiating period** on five major subjects: the **Iranian nuclear program** (enrichment, uranium stockpiles, inspections), the **management of the Strait of Hormuz**, the **lifting of American sanctions**, the **release of frozen Iranian assets** estimated at tens of billions of dollars, and a **$300 billion** American reconstruction program. This is an extraordinarily ambitious agenda for two months.

For perspective: the **JCPOA** negotiations — the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal — took more than **18 months** for just one of these subjects. Claiming to cover all five in **60 days** assumes either considerable prior preparation that the parties have not publicly acknowledged, or a diplomatic optimism bordering on recklessness.

### Iran's internal reality: The Guards versus Pezeshkian

A crucial angle underrepresented in Western analyses: **Masoud Pezeshkian**, the reformist president elected in **2024**, does not control the entirety of Iranian foreign policy. The **Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps** (**IRGC**), intelligence structures, and ultimately **Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei** — who survived the entire strike and negotiation process — remain the ultimate decision-makers on strategic issues.

**Pezeshkian** can sign a diplomatic text. He cannot guarantee that the **IRGC** will respect its terms, that the missile program will be frozen, or that regional militias will receive orders to stand down. The Iranian power structure is designed precisely so that no president, however reformist, can alienate these strategic assets without the approval of the parallel power structures.

*Pezeshkian is not Gorbachev. He cannot dismantle his own system even if he wanted to — and there is little evidence that he wants to do so to the point of confronting the IRGC. The West must stop treating moderate Iranian presidents as interlocutors with genuine decision-making power on national security matters.*

## Rhetorical value versus binding value

### A memorandum, not a treaty: the legal difference matters

A **memorandum of understanding** (MOU) is not an **international treaty** under American law. It does not require Senate ratification. It can be cancelled unilaterally by a presidential decision — as **Trump** himself demonstrated by withdrawing the **United States** from the **JCPOA** in 2018. It does not create legally binding obligations in the same way a treaty does.

This legal reality is doubly problematic: it means the agreement is fragile on the American side — a future president can denounce it — and it gives **Tehran** an excuse to avoid implementing its obligations if the parties accuse each other of violations. The history of American-Iranian agreements since 1979 is precisely a history of unilateral ruptures and reconfigurations of commitment rhetoric.

### The $300 billion: A promise or a negotiating position?

The **$300 billion** American reconstruction program mentioned in the memorandum is presented as a gesture of economic reconciliation. But **$300 billion** represents a sum that the **US Congress** — already under budget pressure — has not approved and does not appear ready to approve. It is an aspirational projection, not a budget commitment.

**Iran**, which needs these funds to rebuild its damaged infrastructure and restart its economy, will likely tie every substantial nuclear concession to financing guarantees that **Washington** cannot provide without a Congressional vote. This is a predictable blocking mechanism built into the very architecture of the agreement.

*Promising $300 billion to Iran without a Congressional vote means promising what you do not have. Promising reconstruction to a regime whose good faith on the nuclear issue has not yet been verified is putting the cart before the horse. I am not against diplomacy — I am against agreements that create impossible expectations and that, by failing, empower hardliners on both sides.*

## Regional implications: Israel, Gulf Arabs, Russia

### Israel: The great absent from the signing but the central actor

**Israel** is not a signatory to the memorandum but is directly affected by its terms. The **Netanyahu** government has expressed public reservations about any agreement that does not guarantee the complete elimination of the Iranian nuclear program and the disarmament of pro-Iranian regional militias. The clause on the cessation of hostilities on all fronts — including **Lebanon** — directly concerns Israeli operations against **Hezbollah**.

The decisive question for **Jerusalem** is simple: does this agreement prevent **Iran** from acquiring the capacity to build a nuclear weapon? If the **60 days** of negotiation do not produce verifiable and binding guarantees on uranium enrichment and existing stockpiles, **Israel** will retain the capability — and probably the intention — to resume strikes at a politically opportune moment.

### The Gulf monarchies: Between relief and suspicion

For **Saudi Arabia**, the **United Arab Emirates**, and **Qatar**, a ceasefire agreement with **Iran** is both a relief and a source of anxiety. The relief is the end of the immediate risk of escalation that threatened their oil and gas infrastructure. The anxiety is that **Washington**, by normalizing relations with **Tehran**, might reduce its security commitment to the **Persian Gulf**.

**Russia**, meanwhile, had developed a growing military and technological cooperation with **Iran** — including the delivery of **Shahed** drones used in **Ukraine**. An American-Iranian peace agreement that included restrictions on this cooperation would put **Moscow** in a difficult position, reducing its access to technologies for circumventing Western sanctions.

*There is something surreal about seeing a peace agreement between the United States and Iran signed at the precise moment when Iran was supplying weapons to Russia to kill Ukrainians. If the memorandum includes clauses on limiting Russian-Iranian military cooperation — and if those clauses are respected — then it will have a direct impact on the conflict in Ukraine. This dimension has not received enough attention.*

## The Russian-Iranian dimension: The arms-nuclear link the agreement ignores

### Russia-Iran military cooperation: A blind spot in the memorandum

The **14-point memorandum** is remarkably silent on something that security analysts nonetheless consider central: the growing military cooperation between **Tehran** and **Moscow**. **Iran** supplied **Shahed** drones to **Russia** by the hundreds — munitions that struck Ukrainian cities and contributed to thousands of civilian casualties. In parallel, **Russia** transferred advanced military technologies to **Iran**, including air defense systems and, according to several intelligence reports, assistance in the ballistic missile domain.

This arms exchange relationship does not feature in the **14 points** of the memorandum. If **Iran** can sign a peace agreement with the **United States** while continuing to supply weapons to **Russia** to kill **Ukrainians**, the real value of this agreement for international security is seriously limited. An agreement that addresses the Iranian nuclear threat without addressing Iran's contribution to the war in **Ukraine** is an agreement optimizing for the presidential photo rather than for global security.

### The implications for the war in Ukraine

A credible clause on limiting **Russian-Iranian** military cooperation in the memorandum could have a direct impact on the Ukrainian front. Each month, dozens of Iranian drones are fired at cities like **Kharkiv**, **Zaporizhzhia**, and **Odessa**. A verifiable freeze on these transfers would ease pressure on Ukrainian air defenses and reduce civilian casualties. This is a diplomatic opportunity that the current agreement appears to deliberately avoid — perhaps because including it would have complicated negotiations with **Tehran**.

**Zelensky** and his **NATO** partners are watching this memorandum closely for precisely this reason. If **Iran** continues to deliver drones to **Russia** after signing an agreement with **Washington**, the **Trump** administration will have to explain why it normalized relations with an active military partner of its principal strategic adversary. This political and moral question has not received the attention it deserves in the media coverage of the deal.

*I need to name the elephant in the room: you cannot treat Iran as a potential peace partner while turning a blind eye to its role in the war that kills Ukrainians every day. These two realities coexist, and a serious diplomatic agreement should address them together. The fact that the 14-point memorandum does not is not an oversight — it is a political choice. And that choice says something about the real priorities of this negotiation.*

## Iranian civil society: The forgotten actor in the negotiation

### What ordinary Iranians think of this agreement

In discussions about the American-Iranian memorandum, one voice is systematically absent: that of the **80 million Iranians** living under the **Islamic Republic**. The negotiations took place between Iranian government representatives and American delegates — without any consultation with Iranian civil society, the women who braved regime repression during the **Mahsa Amini** protests of 2022-2023, trade unions, imprisoned journalists, ethnic and religious minorities.

For millions of Iranians, the real question is not whether **Iran** can enrich uranium to **3.67%** or **60%**. It is whether the **$300 billion** of promised reconstruction will benefit the population or only strengthen the regime's security apparatus. It is whether diplomatic normalization with **Washington** will empower the system's hardliners or create space for internal reform. These questions are absent from the **14-point** text, and their absence is telling.

### The risk of legitimizing a regime without transforming its practices

The history of American diplomacy with authoritarian regimes offers mixed lessons. Normalization with **China** under **Nixon** was supposed to produce internal liberalization — it produced the largest authoritarian power in history. Normalization with **Saudi Arabia** is justified by security imperatives while systematically ignoring the condition of women and dissidents. The agreement with **Iran** risks the same pattern: short-term geopolitical benefits for the negotiating administration, without real transformation of the regime's practices that constitute the heart of the problem.

The **Iranian human rights movement** — notably women's organizations and civil rights lawyers — is watching this agreement with understandable anxiety. For them, every reconstruction dollar that strengthens the regime without being conditioned on verifiable improvements in fundamental rights is an investment in their continued oppression. This human dimension should be central to the evaluation of the agreement — and it is nearly absent from Western public debates.

*I often think of the Iranians who marched through the streets in 2022-2023 chanting "Woman, Life, Freedom" at the risk of their lives. For them, an international agreement that normalizes the regime that represses them without demanding anything in return on fundamental rights looks less like a diplomatic victory than yet another betrayal by democracies that preach human rights but trade them away when politically convenient. I do not blame them for being skeptical.*

## Conclusion: A transformative agreement or just managing the status quo?

### The criteria for a genuine diplomatic success

For this memorandum to represent a genuine turning point, it must produce three essential things within **60 days**: **verifiable nuclear inspections** at all known sites, a **credible freeze** on enrichment above **20%**, and a **supervision mechanism** for pro-Iranian regional militias robust enough for **Israel** and Arab allies to believe in a genuine cessation of hostilities. Nothing in the current text guarantees these three elements.

High-rhetoric diplomacy is a specialty of acute crisis moments. You sign what is signable to stop the bleeding. The real work — harder, less photogenic — begins afterward. **Trump** has the photo. The world now waits to see whether his administration has the capacity and will to do the work that follows.

### What history teaches us about 60-day agreements

The history of Iranian nuclear negotiations since the Geneva accord of **2013** is a succession of triggers, pauses, partial violations, and diplomatic reconfigurations. Each agreement was presented as a turning point. None resolved the fundamental problem: the **Islamic Republic** wants nuclear capability — at minimum, threshold capability — as the ultimate life insurance against externally forced regime change. As long as this survival motivation exists, no agreement will be permanent.

What could actually change the game is not a 14-point memorandum. It is an internal transformation of **Iran** — economic, social, perhaps political in the long run — that would make the bomb less necessary as a regime survival guarantee. For that, the **$300 billion** in reconstruction could genuinely help. But only if it materializes — and if it benefits the Iranian people rather than the **IRGC**.

*My conclusion on this 14-point memorandum is that of a skeptic who hopes to be proven wrong. Imperfect diplomacy is better than war — that is a truth I do not abandon. But diplomacy that creates impossible expectations prepares the next crisis with an even more explosive emotional charge. Trump has the photo. What remains is the hardest part: the work.*

**By Maxime Marquette, columnist**

## Columnist's transparency note

### 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.

### Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between **verified facts and interpretive analysis**. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under **Sources**, never here.

**Primary source families** used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

**Secondary source families**: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under **Sources**.

### 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.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.

## Sources

### Primary sources

- [Al Jazeera — The US account of the unreleased 14-point Iran ceasefire memorandum — June 17, 2026](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/6/17/read-the-us-account-of-unreleased-14-point-iran-ceasefire-memorandum)

- [NPR — US and Iran finalize a war-ending deal — June 23, 2026](https://www.npr.org/2026/06/23/nx-s1-5867322/us-iran-finalize-war-ending-deal)

### Secondary sources

- [FDD — Decision or stagnation in Gaza — June 26, 2026](https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2026/06/26/decision-or-stagnation-gaza/)

- [Al Jazeera — Demand for tunnel maps and civilian disarmament tests Gaza talks — June 23, 2026](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/6/23/demand-for-tunnel-maps-and-family-arms-tests-gaza-talks)

- [ISW — Iran and Oman continue talks on the Strait of Hormuz — June 24, 2026](https://www.facebook.com/InstitutefortheStudyofWar/posts/korean-peninsula-update-june-23-2026-north-korea-appears-to-be-expanding-its-shi/1452347893604150/)

- [Ukrainska Pravda — Regional context of the peace negotiations — June 23, 2026](https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2026/06/23/8040766/)

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Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/essai-l-accord-iran-usa-en-14-points-ce-que-le-texte-dit-tait-et-menace-vraiment