Ten days have passed since Trump and Pezeshkian signed the 14-point memorandum of understanding in Geneva. In those ten days, the US has struck Iran twice. Iran has struck a cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz, launched missiles and drones at Kuwait and Bahrain, and threatened a complete halt to all diplomatic processes. CENTCOM said Sunday that after Friday’s US strikes in response to Iranian attacks on commercial shipping, “Iran was given a chance to honor the ceasefire agreement but elected not,” and launched a second round of strikes on Iranian military surveillance infrastructure, communication systems, air defense sites, drone storage facilities, and minelayer capabilities. Iran’s IRGC responded by launching joint missile and drone attacks targeting US military sites in Kuwait and Bahrain, saying any violation of the ceasefire constitutes a breach of Article 1 of the Islamabad Understanding and will lead to a complete halt of all tracks.
The chain of events leading to Sunday morning’s attacks started on Thursday. Iran struck the Singapore-flagged cargo ship Ever Lovely in the Strait of Hormuz off the coast of Oman. The vessel continued its way. The US said the attack violated the MOU. Iran claimed that the US Navy’s expansion of a transit route near Oman without Iranian oversight was a violation of Iran’s authority over Hormuz traffic as outlined in the MOU. Both positions have textual support in the same document. The 14-point MOU’s vague reference to Hormuz transit rights, which were put off until final negotiations for over 60 days, is now the point of contention for the ceasefire.
The US military, which leads a coalition of navies in the strait, elevated the threat level there to “substantial” on Saturday after attacks on merchant vessels, and opened a traffic lane in the southern part of the strait near Oman to ensure more vessels can cross in both directions. Iran claims that expansion is a violation. Tehran’s position, stated in the IRGC’s Sunday communique, is that under the Islamabad Understanding, Iran will regulate maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, and that vessels attempting to pass without Iranian vetting will be dealt with more firmly than before. Washington says the Strait is an international waterway and that no one should charge a shipping toll or require ship declarations. These are not interpretive differences about timing or sequencing. They are irreconcilable claims about who controls the world’s most critical energy chokepoint. The MOU deferred that question. The deferred question is now producing active strikes.
Trump’s Language and Its Consequences
Trump threatened annihilation on Sunday. “There may come a point when we are no longer able to be reasonable and will be forced to complete the job that we very successfully started militarily,” he wrote on Truth Social. “If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist!” This is not the first such threat. In April, Trump wrote that “a whole civilization will die tonight.” In May, he warned Iran that “the clock is ticking.” There has been a cycle of escalation and then de-escalation, followed by further escalation for each threat. The pattern indicates that Trump’s threats are meant to be pressure rather than operational. They also provide the justifications Iran’s hardliners require at home to continue holding strikes. Each Trump annihilation threat makes it harder for Pezeshkian’s government to be seen domestically as accepting American terms.
Bahrain’s Foreign Ministry condemned what it called “a dangerous escalation that reveals that what Tehran is doing is not a passing act, nor an isolated incident, but rather a deliberate approach and a systematic pattern of repeated aggression.” Kuwait’s Foreign Ministry called the attacks a “flagrant violation” of its sovereignty and a “clear breach of international law.” Kuwait’s army said it intercepted two ballistic missiles with no damage or casualties. A residential building near Bahrain’s international airport had its top floor destroyed by an Iranian drone, with no fatalities. These are US-allied Gulf states absorbing Iranian strikes on their territory because of a war they did not start and an MOU, they were not party to. That is not a sustainable arrangement for regional stability.
Lebanon remains the third pressure point. The trilateral framework agreement signed in Washington on Friday between the US, Israel, and Lebanon contradicts the 14-point MOU, which stipulates the war ends “on all fronts, including in Lebanon” and that the US and Iran will ensure Lebanon’s territorial integrity. Neither Israel nor Hezbollah was party to the MOU negotiations. Israel’s government confirmed it would maintain its security zone in Lebanon regardless of the agreement. Iran has made Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon a condition for full MOU compliance. Israel has made Hezbollah’s disarmament a condition for its own withdrawal. The two conditions can’t coexist on any short-term horizon.
The 60-day final deal window opened on June 18. There are 10 days behind it and 50 days ahead. Iran’s parliament speaker called Sunday for the new conflict control unit formed among Iran, the US, and Lebanon to meet as soon as possible. The same day that Iran fired missiles at Kuwait and Bahrain, that is the same day the call is issued, indicating as much a negotiating stance as fighting. Pakistan and Qatar, as joint mediators, are managing a process where both parties sign agreements and violate them on the same day. The MOU is not dead. Both sides continue to claim they wish to go ahead with the process. But a ceasefire that produces active strikes on Gulf Arab states ten days after its signing is not a ceasefire in any meaningful operational sense. It’s a way to sustain the war at a lower intensity while negotiating its end at a higher one.
