It cannot be said — with any confidence — that there is a "genuine understanding" on a ceasefire between Tehran and Washington.
On the evening of the day before yesterday, American bomber aircraft took off to strike and destroy 90 military and strategic targets on Iranian soil.
A day before that, Iran attacked oil and cargo tankers in the Gulf without justification, among them a Qatari tanker.
On the same day, Iran attacked bases in the State of Kuwait.
The day before yesterday, President Donald Trump announced in Ankara — where he was attending the NATO summit — that he considers the memorandum of understanding with Iran null and void, that he no longer trusts the Iranian side, and directed insults at them that are difficult to repeat here.
Trump appeared nervous, angry, and threatening toward the Iranian side, finding it difficult to understand the mentality that manages the negotiating file in Iran.
Trump comes from a background as a real estate businessman with a golden rule: a successful deal depends on a successful contract whose every clause must be respected with strict, ironclad adherence.
The Iranian side justifies what it does as a reaction to Israel's continued violation of the agreement through its ongoing attacks on the Lebanese front.
Israel has repeated dozens of times that it is not a party to the Iranian–American agreement.
And so the state of war and peace persists in a vicious circle in which each party justifies its violation of the memorandum of understanding as it sees fit and in accordance with its own interests.
The root cause of all this is that the two negotiating parties produced a fragile, ambiguous agreement — built to be interpreted by each party as it pleases and easily wriggled out of.