The memorandum of understanding between Washington and Tehran, which tomorrow marks one month since its signing, faces a new and decisive test that could determine its fate entirely. While attention had been focused on implementing its 14 clauses and containing escalation, confrontation has returned to the fore amid an exchange of military threats and mounting economic pressure. A fundamental question emerges: has the memorandum entered a phase of actual collapse, or is the current confrontation merely a pressure card to reshape the understandings and their terms behind the scenes?
The fragility of the understandings was compounded by US President Donald Trump's announcement of a naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and demands for protection fees on passing shipments, alongside direct threats against Iran, which renewed doubts about the agreement's ability to hold. Military analysts and strategists believe that recent developments have dealt a fatal blow to the spirit of the agreement, as both sides have made no secret of their intentions by attempting to impose financial levies under various pretexts on the world's most important waterway.
Despite the US president's retreat from collecting the fees, Tehran continues its extortion of the world by attempting to impose toll collection — particularly since it had originally planned to impose hefty transit fees after the expiry of a 60-day free period, under the cover of providing "navigation and security services" through its Strait Management Authority. There is a desire to convert the Strait of Hormuz from a free international passage into a strategic toll-collection arena and a source of self-financing, which has undermined the foundations of trust upon which the June memorandum was built.
On the other side, an alternative analytical reading holds that the memorandum has not died but has instead entered a phase of "violent negotiation." Observers believe that the 14 clauses still constitute the only strategic back channel for preventing the region from sliding into a comprehensive and devastating confrontation that neither side truly wants.
The current escalation — despite its language of military threats and blockade decisions — is classified as a tool of mutual pressure to raise the ceiling of conditions and improve negotiating positions before the set deadline for reaching a final agreement. The battle over "fees and levies" and the mutual strikes on positions may therefore be the "rough and undeclared" part of the process of drafting the new agreement, as each side seeks to extract the greatest possible financial and political gains, while international mediation channels remain open to arrange a diplomatic exit when regional circumstances are ripe.
Iranian affairs expert Dr. Alaa Al Saeed believes it is too early to speak of the definitive end of the memorandum of understanding signed last June. He explains that despite recent developments — mutual strikes, military escalation, and US threats to impose a naval blockade on the Strait of Hormuz — which give the impression of a return to the square of open confrontation, the experience of recent decades confirms that escalation does not necessarily mean the collapse of a negotiating track; rather, it has often been part of it.
Dr. Al Saeed stated in exclusive comments to Al Bayan that what is being witnessed on the ground today is a phase of "repositioning and mutual pressure" and not a declaration of the memorandum's death, noting that Washington is seeking to raise the cost of Iranian procrastination and force Tehran into making additional concessions. He points out that in such circumstances, the language of missiles becomes part of the negotiating process just as diplomacy does.
Although some of the 14 memorandum clauses have been shaken by events on the ground, the overall framework has not disappeared; Washington is not prepared for the cost of an all-out war, nor does Tehran's situation allow for an open-ended confrontation without a time limit.
Dr. Al Saeed concludes that the memorandum is undergoing a severe test and not a burial, affirming the continuation of communication channels through intermediaries behind the military noise, and stressing that declaring the understandings over remains premature unless the world witnesses a complete breakdown of communication channels.
For his part, political analyst Hamad Boudari offers a realistic reading of the prospects for the Washington-Tehran memorandum of understanding, affirming that the memorandum remains in force for now by mutual desire and will from both sides.
Boudari explained in exclusive comments to Al Bayan that the official positions announced by both sides, despite their sharp tone, confirm their formal adherence to the negotiating framework, with each party taking care to accuse the other of violating the understandings in order to evade political responsibility and improve its position.
Boudari believes that the threat of imposing transit fees in the Strait of Hormuz and the exchange of field attacks are part of tactics of violent pressure, and he expects the cycle of mutual attacks to continue without an official declaration of the agreement's death.
He concludes his analysis by noting that this mutual military escalation and financial extortion will not stop until Tehran ultimately reaches full conviction and a realistic trade-off that it will not win the battle for control of the Strait of Hormuz — which may at that point push it to accept a final settlement on more realistic terms.