A Welcome Development for Working People and the Oppressed Around the Globe
The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed by Washington and Tehran on June 17, 2026 — declaring “the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon” — registered a major setback for U.S. imperialism in the war against Iran, a war the U.S. and Israeli militaries jointly launched on February 28.
The Trump administration achieved none of its stated aims. These included overthrowing the Iranian regime and replacing it with one of Washington’s liking. The White House had also declared it would end Iran’s ability to produce and use ballistic missiles and support allied militias in the Mideast. And it projected the obliteration of Iran’s arsenal of missiles and drones.
Iran pledged it will never produce or acquire nuclear weapons, but this is a promise Tehran has made for decades. At the same time, Iran has not renounced its right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes — nuclear power generation. Negotiations on how to handle Tehran’s stockpiles of already enriched nuclear fuel have been relegated to a second phase of peace talks. These are scheduled to last for 60 days, but can be extended, and in reality, could go on for months or years, as past experience shows.
The war did not accomplish the U.S. rulers’ main unstated goal, either: Taking control of Iran’s enormous natural resources — especially oil and natural gas — which would put the U.S. military in a better position to face a future war with China, Washington’s top competitor.
EDITORIAL
The U.S.-Israeli war machine did bring about this much: It killed or maimed tens of thousands and destroyed swaths of residential and commercial buildings, infrastructure, and productive capacity.
The casualties in Iran include 3,500 killed — 1,700 of them civilians and more than 300 children — and more than 25,000 injured. More than 100,000 dwellings, as well as over 100 schools and 50 medical centers were damaged or destroyed across the country, in addition to highways, water treatment centers, storage facilities, and industrial plants.
Lebanon has experienced comparable, if not greater, death and destruction, including at least 4,000 killed — mostly civilians, 12,000 injured, and 1.2 million displaced. Much of the southern part of the country, occupied by Israeli troops, has been flattened by Israeli bombings and demolitions.
Hundreds of people were also killed or injured in Israel/Palestine, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Oman. And 13 U.S. soldiers died on the Pentagon’s altar for the oil and profits of the super wealthy, in a war that cost thus far more than $130 billion, according to Moody’s analytics.
Despite the attackers’ immense firepower, Iran stood up to the world’s most powerful military and its main ally in the Mideast in this highly asymmetrical war. The Iranian military inflicted significant damage to U.S military assets and to oil and other facilities in Gulf countries allied with Washington.
As a result, the confidence of the Gulf monarchies that they could rely on Washington for protection was shaken. The war also prompted many other U.S. allies to distance themselves from the White House. France, Italy, Spain, and Turkey limited access to their bases, refusing to be drawn into the conflict.
U.S. president Donald Trump and his secretary of war Pete Hegseth are enthralled with U.S. military power. They behave as if they can do whatever they want and prevail. Iran just showed how untrue that is. To dominate Iran, Washington would need to be prepared to send in large numbers of ground troops in addition to high-tech fighter jets, aircraft carriers, and other sophisticated military hardware. But even that would not guarantee success and would risk the loss of support from Trump’s base, as well as much wider opposition.
The Vietnam Syndrome[1] is still alive.
After Iran’s former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and many other top government and military officials were killed, Iran’s regime emerged stronger. It is now based on younger leaders many of whom are directly associated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps — the heart of Iran’s military. It is perhaps less theocratic. And it is more confident it can defend the interests of Iran’s capitalist class.
Most importantly, Iranian actions near the Strait of Hormuz — including laying mines and other threats to shipping — slashed tanker traffic and choked off petroleum and natural gas commerce through the Persian Gulf. About 20% of the world’s oil supply and nearly 20% of global liquefied natural gas trade passed daily through the Strait before the war began, in addition to similar quantities of ammonia, helium, sulfur, and aluminum.
War brought world to precipice of ‘economic catastrophe’
Tehran demonstrated it has major leverage and holds the upper hand with its ability to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, causing havoc in the world economy.
Trump, whose narcissism and imperial arrogance make him loath to admit losing in any conflict, appeared cowed after signing the MOU.
In May reporters had asked whether he cared about the war’s impact on rising gas prices and inflation. “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation,” Trump callously responded at the time. “I don’t think about anybody.”
At the G7 summit in France, however, after signing the peace deal with Iran, he sang a different tune. “I didn’t want to see an economic catastrophe,” Trump told the media. He added he didn’t want to be compared with Herbert Hoover, who was U.S. president during the 1929 stock market crash that led to the Great Depression.
In the MOU, Iran agreed it will allow toll-free shipping through the Strait for “60 days only.” This means Iran reserves the right to impose shipping fees, likely in collaboration with Oman, on commercial traffic through Hormuz two months down the road.
In addition, Iran extracted more financial concessions from the Yankee empire in exchange for vague promises of talks on its nuclear program. That starts with an immediate waiver of sanctions, letting Iran sell oil worldwide. And it could grow to include the full lifting of sanctions and access to a $300 billion fund set up by Arab Gulf states for postwar reconstruction.
Washington was also forced to acknowledge the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iran and pledged to refrain from interfering in the country’s internal affairs. In addition, the deal requires that U.S. forces withdraw from the “proximity” of Iran within 30 days, allowing Tehran to claim it chased the U.S. navy from the region. Reopening the Strait of Hormuz and ending the U.S. naval blockade of Iranian tankers, stipulated in the MOU, would simply return the state of affairs to pre-war conditions.
Israel’s top leaders, especially the ultraright, firmly embedded in Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, reacted with shock and dismay. Times of Israel editor David Horovitz called the accord, which Israel was not part of negotiating, “a catastrophic capitulation.”
Israeli government officials and pundits protested that the MOU constrains the Israeli military in Lebanon by requiring that Israel withdraw its forces from that country. At the same time, U.S. spy agencies reported that Israel is likely to continue military attacks in Lebanon, disregarding the U.S.-Iran deal.
This prompted unusually sharp criticism of the Israeli government by Trump and his vice president J.D. Vance. “Donald J. Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who’s sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time,” Vance told the media during a White House briefing on June 18. “If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world.”
This apparent rift shows that U.S. and Israeli interests are not identical. U.S. imperialism has sought and will pursue its own foreign policy objectives in the Mideast and beyond, which may come into conflict with Israeli goals, as seems to be the case now.
Danger of antisemitic conspiracy theories
There is not much for working people to celebrate in this rift, however. In recent editorials and news analyses, we have noted that if the war did not go well for the White House — and it has not gone well — antisemitic conspiracy theories pushed by ultra-rightists, such as former Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson, could take center stage in U.S. politics.
“Fascists and ultra-rightists always default to Jew hatred, one of the world’s oldest conspiracy theories,” the World-Outlook article Iran Stymies U.S.-Israeli War pointed out. “The Israeli leadership’s false claim that it speaks and acts for all Jews helps enable this. For those demanding an end to the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, it is essential to see that Carlson and company are no allies. They are deadly enemies.”
Washington’s defeat in its imperialist assault on Iran provides some relief for working people around the world, whose livelihoods have been upended by rising prices and shortages triggered by the U.S.-Israeli war — especially in Africa and Asia. The U.S. setback may also give some breathing space to revolutionary Cuba, under siege from an escalating U.S. blockade and threatened military assault, although it’s impossible to predict what Trump may do next.
Welcoming the Yankee setback in no way signifies political support for Iran’s clerical regime. As we explained in our last editorial, “To the dismay of U.S. imperialism, Iran’s oil reserves have been out of its reach since Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was deposed by a revolutionary upsurge of Iranian workers and peasants, as well as students and other youth, in 1979. From that moment… Iran has been a thorn in Washington’s side.”
Iran’s working people made significant gains during the first years of the Iranian revolution. But the lack of a revolutionary party — composed in its majority of workers and peasants, experienced in the struggles of the oppressed and exploited, and enjoying the respect of the masses — allowed bourgeois forces around Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to eventually establish a stable capitalist regime. That authoritarian regime has fanned the flames of Jew hatred in the Middle East for decades and unleashed lethal crackdowns against the Iranian people each time they organized mass protests for democratic and other rights — as was the case last January.
It is also important to acknowledge that the blow Tehran dealt Washington in the recent war — another sign of U.S. imperialism’s decline — does not lessen the lethal danger posed by U.S. military forces deployed in the Middle East and around the globe. A declining empire remains deadly even as its military adventures fail, as millions learned in Iran. The U.S. armada remains off the coast of Iran and in nearby international waters. U.S. military bases with thousands of troops dot the Mideast.
The current cease fire, outlined in the MOU, is tenuous, at best. This was demonstrated barely three days after the deal was signed, as Israel renewed fierce bombing of Lebanese cities and Iran announced it had closed the Strait of Hormuz in response.
As the second phase of peace talks between Washington and Tehran started in Switzerland on June 21, Iranian officials were telling reporters that “ending the fighting in Lebanon was the most important item on the Iranian delegation’s agenda,” a demand Israel does not seem inclined to agree to.
Under these circumstances, it is imperative for working people, youth, and other opponents of Washington’s imperialist wars to demand: U.S. out of the Mideast! Israel out of Lebanon!
NOTES
[1] The Vietnam Syndrome refers to the loss of confidence within the U.S. ruling class and the Pentagon’s top brass in deploying large numbers of ground troops to achieve U.S. imperialist aims around the world. It originated from Washington’s first major military defeat in the Vietnam war in 1975. For more information see ‘Out Now!’ – Lessons from the Movement Against the U.S. War in Vietnam. Even though Washington did subsequently carry out massive military interventions, involving large numbers of ground forces in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last three decades, its setbacks in those military adventures have perpetuated the Vietnam Syndrome.
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Categories: Editorials, US Politics