The regime gets financial relief to reopen Hormuz and hold more nuclear talks.
1 — The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States, together with their allies in the current war, declare upon the signing of this Memorandum of Understanding an immediate and permanent end to the war on all fronts, including Lebanon, and undertake that from now on they will not launch any hostile action against each other, and will refrain from the threat or use of force against each other. The final agreement will confirm the provisions of this Article and the remaining Articles.So, not only did we not change the regime, we've agreed not to touch Iran's.
So we're paying for the damage we did during the war.
And we're lifting the sanctions.
Some Iranian assets have been frozen for 47 years.
14 — The final agreement will be approved through a binding resolution of the UN Security Council.
And so Mad King Donny, MAGA's would be Cyrus the Great, instead turns out to be the architect of American defeat in Afghanistan and Iran.
June 18, 2026
Saying "this was not easy" Trump signed the instrument of impotence yesterday, acknowledging that Iran brought the United States to its knees.
Getting into wars is, in fact, easy.
Winning them much harder.
Winning one that most people didn't want, and which had no clear war aim, harder yet.
Some other views:
The Truth About Trump's Iran Deal
It's a total failure
Peace in our time
Iran peace deal
Calling Out Trump’s Iran Surrender Is Not TDS
The Art of the Deal | Trump's Iran Deal Is Worse Than the One He Tore Up — June 15, 2026
Of course nothing is going to stop the hardcore MAGAs from claiming this is the greatest deal ever. The IRGC could be marching down Pennsylvania Avenue and they'd still be celebrating Trump's genius.
The entire war was a real example of our Sixth Law of History, "When a war ends is when the defending party decides that it is over" but now the fifth will visit in spades. Trump thought the war would be easy, a testament to his intellectual shallowness, but it was hard. The peace is going to be hard too. During the war we moved from a super power to a regional power, and we will not regain our former position, ever. Like many regional powers, we still have global commitments, but now it's evident that we cannot fulfill them. During the war Trump visited China was was treated like an amusing irrelevancy, as that is what he is to the Chinese. The war makes a Chinese invasion of Taiwan more likely, and moves up the timetable for that as China knows that the next President, no matter who it is, will not be a demented old fool. Western Europe is emerging to take much of the place we formerly occupied as well, and we will dance to their tune, which at least is not insane as ours has recently been.
The timing of the end of the war is impossible not to note. Trump is racing towards death and is desperate for a legacy other than the one he has. He's not going to achieve it. The war basically ended on his birthday. His association with war was originally absent:
As President, he thought it would be easy.
Yeoman's Fifth Law of History. When a war ends is when the defending party decides that it is over.
Desperation, dementia, and hubris, combined with the absolute failure of the American political system.
There remains an opportunity to set some, but not all, of this right. And that starts with the law. Trump is increasingly worried that he will be impeached. He really should be worried. The first act of the new Congress in January, 2027, should be for Articles of Impeachment to be introduced in Congress. More than that, as war is killing and breaking things, Trump, Hegseth, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff should be charged with murder and tried.
We failed with Nixon, on impeachment, and that gave us Trump. We don't have much of a chance to get this right.
It should not, however, stop there. Those GOP sycophants who have some power who have sat around supporting the war in one way or another should likewise bear some repercussion, it at least at the ballot box.
And on that, now that Trump doesn't have to worry about Iran, look for Rubio to try to pivot to invading Cuba. Marco has only a few months to convert himself from Vyacheslav Molotov into José Martí, and he knows it. Getting the support of the Cuban American community is his only real chance to obtain the Presidency, which is why he sold his soul to Trump in the first place. J. C. Vance no longer has any pathway at all, and appears to know it, maybe even be comfortable with it. He's likely hanging on in hopes that the 25th Amendment removes his obviously demented superior from office, which is his only pathway, or in the anticipation that Trump goes to sleep in a press conference and simply never wakes up, which is becoming an increasingly likely scenario.
So much so, in fact, that you know everyone standing behind Trump who retains a brain, which not all of them do, have a rush for the treasury plan* in case Trump slumps over and enters the next world. It'd be mere days before you'd hear the disclaimers of ludicrous and disastrous plans and the political executions would start at the same time.
In the meantime we have a President who is declining mentally and who can see the Reaper standing at the doorway, and by the bedstand, every day. He doesn't want to be remembered as the friend of a kiddy diddler, or a person who had a vapid irrelevant life. He wants to be remembered as a hero. The man who conquered Iran and brought in the "Don Roe Doctrine". He want to be remembered as the man who cleaned up Washington D.C. and made it a place that Albert Speer would have been proud to work on.
Ballrooms that won't get completed. A triumphal arch that might get started, but which will be a monument to a looser. Trump will be the first leader with a arche de l'échec.
And a brilliantly green reflecting pool, clogged with algae.
Absolutely incredible.
The Great Man Theory of history is, we're told, dead. Trump's legacy will cause us to question that. Trump's great, in a negative sense. He's a remarkable example of what one really bad man can do in a democracy. Of course, being a democracy, he couldn't have done it without the willing help of about 1/3d of the electorate, the incompetence of the political parties and the moronic two party system, and voters who just stayed home and ate Ding Dongs or whatever.
Don Ho sings "Tiny Bubbles" - Hollywood Palace 1/21/67
Footnotes:
* In Medieval England, if a king died suddenly the claimants of the thrown rushed for the treasury to secure it, as that was their best chance of becoming the next king.
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