Trump says Iran is 'finished', experts say Tehran won big

But some Iran experts argue the agreement risks delivering significant concessions to Tehran while leaving key disputes unresolved.

David Schenker, former US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, told Eye for Iran he was surprised by the scope of benefits Iran could receive under the agreement.

"I don't feel good about it," Schenker said.

The MOU outlines a 60-day negotiation period during which the future of Iran's nuclear program, sanctions relief, frozen Iranian assets, reconstruction funding and the administration of the Strait of Hormuz will be discussed.

According to Schenker, the agreement effectively gives Tehran major economic benefits upfront while postponing the most difficult negotiations.

"In the meanwhile, it's a tremendous win for Iran," he said.

Lebanon's role in the deal

One of the most controversial aspects of the agreement centers on Lebanon.

Earlier this month, Iran launched direct missile attacks on Israel after Israeli strikes targeted Hezbollah positions in Beirut's southern suburbs. The exchange marked a significant shift in Tehran's approach.

For decades, Iran largely relied on proxy groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas to confront Israel. This time, Iranian officials openly linked attacks on Hezbollah to direct Iranian retaliation against Israel. Many Iran experts warned the Trump administration against tying Lebanon to the Iran conflict.

Iranian leaders subsequently insisted that any broader ceasefire arrangement must also address Lebanon.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned that negotiations could not move forward unless fighting in Lebanon ended, while other Iranian officials described Lebanon as being at the "forefront" of discussions with Washington.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected what he described as Iran's attempt to impose a "new equation" in which attacks on Hezbollah would trigger direct Iranian military action.

• 

  Tit-for-tat under ceasefire: Experts warn of new normal in Mideast conflict

Schenker believes elements of that equation may now be reflected in the MOU.

"I think first and foremost it suggests that the administration wanted a deal more than Iran, so it was willing to make concessions," he said.

According to Schenker, the agreement risks strengthening Iran's regional influence despite the military setbacks it suffered during the conflict.

"They're going to point to this and say, 'Look, Iran and Hezbollah protected Lebanon,'" he said.

He argued that such a narrative could undermine Lebanon's elected government while boosting Iran's standing among Hezbollah supporters.

For Schenker, the precedent may prove as significant as any sanctions relief.

"If Iran can insulate not only Hezbollah but also its other regional partners from retaliation, it strengthens this proxy network across the region," he said.

Concerns over sanctions relief

Schenker also questioned provisions that could lead to the lifting of oil sanctions and the release of frozen Iranian assets.

"They're doing the lifting of the oil sanctions upfront," he said, warning that the move could provide billions of dollars in revenue to Tehran.

The former diplomat said several of the original objectives Washington and Israel cited at the outset of the conflict appear absent from the current framework, including limits on Iran's ballistic missile program and support for regional proxy groups.

He also raised concerns over language that could eventually allow Iran to collect fees related to maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.

"It's something out of a mafia movie," Schenker said. "Iran is offering protection and will shake down international shipping."

• 

  German national’s body returned after death in Iran prison, daughter told

The Iranian perspective

While much of the debate surrounding the MOU has focused on geopolitics, oil markets and regional security, some opponents of the Islamic Republic are viewing the agreement through a different lens.

For human rights activist Gazelle Sharmahd, whose father Jamshid Sharmahd was abducted and later executed by Iranian authorities, the announcement felt deeply personal.

"Defeat," she said when asked how she reacted to news of the agreement.

"I think a lot of people feel betrayed."

Sharmahd said many Iranians had believed sustained military and economic pressure had brought the Islamic Republic to one of its weakest moments in decades.

"We had the regime on its knees," she said. "How do we go from there to giving this regime the resources, the power, the legitimacy to build up everything that we took away from them?"

She warned that sanctions relief and new funding could strengthen the state's ability to suppress dissent inside Iran.

"The execution wave will not go down," she said. "In history, we see it goes up when we appease this regime."

Message to Trump

Sharmahd reserved some of her strongest comments for Trump himself.

Speaking directly to the US president, she urged him not to abandon pressure on Tehran.

"Capitulation will not save us. It will be our end," she said.

"You have an army of Iranians. You have an army of American patriots. You have an army in the Middle East standing behind you."

She argued that any future agreement should prioritize the aspirations of ordinary Iranians rather than the interests of the government in Tehran.

"Speak to us," she said. "Not to this regime."

As negotiations move forward, the debate over the MOU is likely to intensify.

For supporters, the agreement offers a pathway away from another costly regional war. For critics, it risks rewarding Tehran while leaving unresolved many of the issues that helped trigger the conflict in the first place.

You can watch Eye for Iran on YouTube or Subscribe and listen on any podcast platform

The US and Pakistani officials say a Memorandum of Understanding with Iran will be signed on Sunday, describing it as a step toward ending the wider conflict, but Tehran has cast doubt on the timing.

That uncertainty has kept attention on the issues still capable of derailing or reshaping any deal.

One of them is Lebanon.

Iranian officials and media reports have suggested that any broader understanding with the United States would have to include an end to fighting involving Hezbollah. Israel has rejected any arrangement that would limit its freedom of action, with Defense Minister Israel Katz saying Friday that Israel would continue operating in Lebanon regardless of any agreement with Tehran.

The dispute reflects a larger reality taking shape across the Middle East: even if a preliminary Iran-US agreement moves forward, the struggle over Lebanon may decide what kind of post-war order follows it.

For veteran Middle East negotiator Aaron David Miller, Tehran’s focus on Lebanon is no accident.

“I think they are using Lebanon now to try to push Trump to push Netanyahu and to establish a new equation,” Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Eye for Iran.

For decades, Hezbollah served as Iran’s primary deterrent against direct attacks on Iranian territory. Now, Miller argues, Tehran is attempting to reverse that logic by making Hezbollah itself the red line.

Lebanon, he said, has become even more important to Iran after setbacks elsewhere in its regional network. The result is a new dynamic in which military action in Lebanon risks triggering a wider confrontation involving Iran directly.

“The concern about Lebanon and the Persian Gulf is that they provide ample opportunities for miscalculation or kinetic interaction,” Miller said.

The repercussions are already being felt beyond Lebanon.

Mohamed Fahmy, an Egyptian-Canadian journalist and Middle East political analyst who recently returned from reporting in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, said the war has altered how Iran is viewed across parts of the Arab world.

“There is a scar that has changed the psyche of people there towards how Iran is viewed,” Fahmy said.

Fahmy said governments across the region are now grappling with questions about deterrence, security and their future relationship with Tehran as missile and drone attacks continue despite diplomatic efforts.

The shifting landscape is also reshaping traditional assumptions about power in the Middle East.

“If you ask me who are the three most powerful players in the region, they’re the three non-Arabs: Israel, Turkey and Iran,” Miller said.

“The three states that dominated Middle Eastern politics for decades, Egypt, Iraq and Syria, are all offline.”

That makes Lebanon more than a side issue in the diplomacy around Iran. It is one of the places where the limits of any agreement may be tested first: whether Iran can preserve the deterrent value of Hezbollah, whether Israel can keep striking without triggering a wider war, and whether Washington can turn a preliminary understanding with Tehran into a more durable regional arrangement.

'The only real end is Iran regime change'

For former US special representative for Iran Elliott Abrams, the debate over Lebanon points to a larger question about the future of the Islamic Republic itself.

“The only real end of this is the end of the regime, which is to say, let the Iranian people govern themselves,” Abrams told Eye for Iran.

Looking beyond the immediate fighting, Abrams argued that the significance of the war may not ultimately be measured by what happens in Lebanon, but by what happens inside Iran.

“If the regime falls in a few years, we’ll all look back on early 2026 and say that’s when it started.”

For now, Lebanon remains one of the clearest tests of the emerging Iran-US track. A preliminary agreement may slow the war, but experts say the unresolved fight over Hezbollah and Israel’s freedom of action could still shape what comes after it.

A senior Iranian official told CNN on Friday that a potential agreement hinges on Washington releasing $24 billion in frozen Iranian funds, warning the United States would enter a "dark corridor" if it resumes military action.

The comments came as Iran also tied the future of a broader peace arrangement to developments in Lebanon, Hezbollah and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

For President Donald Trump, the standoff is testing whether his mix of pressure, unpredictability and military force can break a negotiating playbook that has frustrated successive US administrations.

"The Islamic Republic gets a vote here too," Jason Brodsky, policy director at United Against Nuclear Iran, told Eye for Iran. "The Iranian regime plays a much longer game than the United States does in terms of its strategic patience and strategy."

Brodsky said Iran has historically used prolonged negotiations to wear down international demands, pointing to how the original US position of zero enrichment eventually gave way to the 2015 nuclear deal's limited enrichment framework.

But he argued Trump has changed the baseline by demonstrating a willingness to use force.

"For the first time in decades, the Islamic Republic is not enriching uranium," Brodsky said, crediting US and Israeli military action with changing the facts on the ground.

Can Trump outlast Tehran's long game?

Former US diplomat Alberto Fernandez said Trump may possess an advantage previous administrations lacked: the ability to walk away from a deal while maintaining pressure.

"No deal is better than a bad deal," Fernandez said, arguing that Trump could refuse sanctions relief, maintain the blockade and preserve the threat of future strikes if Tehran refuses to compromise.

Still, there are concerns that Iran's strategy may be working in more subtle ways. Tehran has long relied on protracted negotiations to buy time, lower demands and secure concessions incrementally.

Daily Mail special correspondent David Patrikarakos warned that if Iran secures a limited nuclear agreement without restrictions on missiles or regional activity, it could still claim victory.

"If what Iran gets is a ring-fenced nuclear deal, then honestly, it's a defeat and it is a win for the Iranians," he said.

The question is whether Trump can sustain pressure long enough to force a broader agreement—or whether domestic politics, oil prices and regional tensions ultimately push Washington toward a narrower deal.

Is Iran's leverage shrinking?

That question extends beyond the nuclear file.

In Lebanon, President Joseph Aoun delivered a rare public rebuke to Tehran this week, accusing Iran of using his country as a "bargaining chip" in its confrontation with Washington and Israel.

"You are not trying to help us," Aoun told CNN. "The people of Lebanon are paying the price for the sake of your own interest."

He also directed a message to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps: "It's not your country, it's our country."

The comments reflect growing frustration among Lebanese officials who argue their country has paid the price for regional conflicts driven by outside powers.

May Farhat, Iran International's correspondent in Beirut, said Hezbollah is facing one of the weakest periods in its history after major military and political setbacks.

"There is little doubt that Hezbollah is going through one of the most difficult periods in its history," Farhat told Eye for Iran.

She pointed to the killing of senior commanders, the loss of Hassan Nasrallah, tighter border controls and new Lebanese restrictions on Iranian access as evidence that the balance of power inside Lebanon is shifting.

For the first time in years, Lebanese authorities have suspended direct Iranian flights, tightened visa requirements for Iranian citizens and moved to limit Tehran's influence over strategic infrastructure and border crossings.

The weakening of Hezbollah matters because it potentially reduces one of Tehran's most important sources of regional leverage at a moment when Iran is attempting to negotiate from a position of strength.

The Strait of Hormuz represents another test of Iran's leverage.

For decades, the Islamic Republic has used the threat of disruption in the waterway as one of its most powerful strategic tools. But according to Homayoun Falakshahi, who leads Kpler's crude oil analysis team, that leverage may already be eroding.

Falakshahi said oil tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has fallen dramatically since the war and the US blockade on Iranian ports. Before the conflict, roughly 30 oil tankers transited the waterway daily. Today, the average is closer to one or two.

More importantly, he argues that the crisis is accelerating efforts by Gulf states to reduce their dependence on the strait altogether.

Abu Dhabi is already expanding export capacity through Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman, while other producers are exploring alternative routes.

"Five years from now, that leverage that the Islamic Republic currently has probably will not exist anymore," Falakshahi said.

He believes Iran may be overestimating the long-term value of its position.

"They always overplay their hand," he said.

While the disruption of the Strait of Hormuz has demonstrated Tehran's ability to shake global energy markets, Falakshahi argues that the strategy ultimately hurts Iran's own interests by damaging China, its most important oil customer and strategic partner.

"I don't think they have the upper hand," he said. "Even though they want everyone to believe that they have."

For now, Iran is testing the limits: in Lebanon, in the Persian Gulf, at sea and at the negotiating table.

Trump may have disrupted Tehran's playbook. But whether he has cracked it will depend on whether pressure produces a durable agreement—or simply another pause in a decades-long confrontation.

The Iran war left the Islamic Republic weaker than it had been in years. The question now is whether Washington will turn that weakness into leverage – or give Tehran room to recover through a new deal.

That debate is becoming increasingly urgent as Washington and Tehran move closer to a potential agreement that could extend the current ceasefire and launch a new phase of negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.

President Donald Trump has suggested a deal may be within reach, while officials on both sides have signaled progress despite major unresolved disputes.

For supporters of the military campaign, the logic is straightforward: Iran entered the talks weaker than it has been in years. For critics, the concern is that diplomacy could give Tehran breathing room just as years of economic pressure, domestic unrest and military setbacks had left it vulnerable.

Speaking to Eye for Iran, former US Treasury official Miad Maleki and national security expert Thomas Juneau offered different answers to the same question: what exactly did the war achieve?

Continue reading

That debate is becoming increasingly urgent as Washington and Tehran move closer to a potential agreement that could extend the current ceasefire and launch a new phase of negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.

President Donald Trump has suggested a deal may be within reach, while officials on both sides have signaled progress despite major unresolved disputes.

For supporters of the military campaign, the logic is straightforward: Iran entered the talks weaker than it has been in years. For critics, the concern is that diplomacy could give Tehran breathing room just as years of economic pressure, domestic unrest and military setbacks had left it vulnerable.

Speaking to Eye for Iran, former US Treasury official Miad Maleki and national security expert Thomas Juneau offered different answers to the same question: what exactly did the war achieve?

A Regime under pressure

While the two experts differ on what should happen next, both agree that the Islamic Republic emerged from the conflict significantly weakened.

"They've never been so weak. They've never been so vulnerable that they are today, militarily, politically, economically," Maleki said.

The Islamic Republic, he argued, faces mounting economic pressure at home while struggling to maintain the image of strength it has projected for decades. Tehran’s military infrastructure has suffered significant damage, senior figures have been killed, and the economy was already under strain before the conflict began.

Juneau reached a similar conclusion, though from a different angle.

"The regime was clobbered," he said.

Beyond the military and economic damage, Juneau argued that one of Tehran’s core strategic assumptions collapsed during the conflict.

For decades, Iran invested heavily in Hezbollah, Hamas and other regional allies as part of what officials often described as a forward defense strategy. The idea was that any direct attack on Iran would trigger retaliation across the region, deterring adversaries from striking the country itself.

"That failed," Juneau said.

Maleki argues that the regime's losses go beyond military hardware.

The conflict exposed weaknesses in Iran’s air defenses, damaged key infrastructure and further strained a system already struggling with economic collapse, inflation and public discontent. In his view, Tehran entered negotiations not from a position of strength, but because it had few alternatives.

Victory, leverage or lifeline?

Where the two experts diverge is over what happens next.

For Maleki, the central question is why negotiations are taking place now, at a moment when many observers believe the Islamic Republic is under greater pressure than at any point in recent years.

He pointed to growing frustration among some Iranians who believe the conflict exposed vulnerabilities that could have accelerated political change.

"There's some level of disappointment that the fact that the US is negotiating with this regime is bad for the future of a free Iran," he said.

The concern is not that Iran emerged stronger from the war. Rather, it is that Tehran survived a period of extraordinary pressure and may now receive economic or diplomatic relief before those pressures fully take effect.

Juneau sees a different risk.

While acknowledging that the regime has been weakened, he argues that ordinary Iranians may ultimately bear the greatest cost.

"The Iranian people have been thrown under the bus," he said.

The economy, already battered by sanctions, corruption and years of mismanagement, now faces the additional burden of reconstruction. At the same time, Juneau warns that a weakened regime does not necessarily become a more moderate one.

In fact, he believes future protests could face even harsher repression than previous waves of unrest.

"This is a regime now that will have even less tolerance for any kind of popular protests in the future," he said.

The disagreement reflects a broader uncertainty surrounding the talks themselves.

If the objective of the war was to weaken the Islamic Republic’s military capabilities, there is broad agreement that it succeeded. Iran’s regional posture has been damaged, key infrastructure has been hit and some of its most senior figures are gone.

But if the objective was to fundamentally alter Tehran’s behavior, improve conditions for ordinary Iranians or create a pathway toward meaningful political change, the answer remains far less clear.

Maleki believes the conflict became unavoidable as Iran expanded its missile, drone and regional capabilities.

"The conflict was unavoidable. It was coming sooner or later," he said.

Juneau is more cautious.

Asked whether the war was ultimately worth it, he declined to offer a simple yes-or-no answer.

"The negative implications of the war outweigh the positive implications," he said.

That may ultimately be the central dilemma facing policymakers in Washington and the region.

The war weakened the Islamic Republic. Few dispute that.

The unanswered question is whether the diplomacy now taking shape will build on that weakness or alleviate it.