A woman walks near a mural depicting the late leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on a street in Tehran, Iran, June 18, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

From the start of the Iran war, a chorus of critics emerged to condemn the intervention. These detractors were not merely partisans driven by automatic bias, nor were they simply opposing actions aligned with Israeli strategic interests.

Many raised principled constitutional concerns, arguing fairly that a conflict of this magnitude required explicit authorization from Congress. Others pointed to a contradiction in the administration’s rhetoric, noting that a president who campaigned vociferously on ending America’s “endless wars” was now leading the nation into a massive, unpredictable confrontation. The immediate financial and human costs were undeniable; to many, it felt like the repetition of an old, exhausted playbook. They argued the war was unnecessary, reckless, and bound to end in disaster.

But these criticisms, however well-intentioned, fundamentally misunderstood the existential nature of the threat. Allowing Iran to cross the nuclear threshold carried a catastrophic long-term cost for global stability. Past containment strategies — including the structurally flawed Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — had simply kicked an increasingly expensive can down the road, giving the Iranian regime decades to fortify its infrastructure and build a formidable regional deterrent.

Confronting this threat was always going to be inherently painful and immense in its toll. Yet, the baseline danger of a nuclear-armed Tehran forced a decisive response. No matter how steep the price, inaction remained entirely unacceptable. This war was worth it from the very beginning because the cost of doing nothing was a luxury the civilized world could no longer afford.

Today, critics across the political spectrum look at the current Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and conclude that these immense sacrifices were for nothing.

To detractors, the MOU reads as an unmitigated capitulation — a premature surrender where the administration has effectively undone its hard-won gains, handed the Strait of Hormuz back to a hostile regime, and compensated them for the damage inflicted. The prevailing narrative is one of total defeat: that the war was a mistake in the first place, and that the administration failed to achieve its core objectives, choosing instead to reward the adversary. While this narrative of capitulation is understandable given the absence of traditional “victory” conditions and clearly communicated objectives, it misinterprets the strategic utility of this arrangement.

First, as the regional consensus demonstrated, the initial intervention was an unavoidable strategic necessity. Even as Gulf states endured severe economic and security shocks — including the direct bombing of critical energy infrastructure — they remained aligned on the mission because they understood the reality of a nuclear Iran. Regarding the regime’s strategic assets, the war successfully degraded their ability to utilize their missile arsenal and severely hampered their capacity to re-arm, even while they maintained much of the physical arsenal itself.

Crucially, the intervention dismantled and pushed back the regime’s immediate nuclear breakout capacity, a critical victory that cannot be discounted in hindsight.

Second, judging this 60-day temporary arrangement as a permanent concession completely misinterprets the nature of a multi-stage conflict. We do not yet know what the permanent solution will look like, but it is almost certainly not the worst-case scenario imagined by critics.

This MOU is not a final, settled peace; it is a strategic pause.

The immediate, tactical objective is to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, stabilize global energy markets, and mitigate catastrophic economic shocks before domestic political pressures close the window for action entirely.

The United States entered this pause from a fundamentally altered negotiating posture, with Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and regional proxies recently facing severe degradation. While a $300 billion figure would indeed represent a shocking capitulation, it is far more likely that the regime will receive only a tiny fraction of that amount under this arrangement. By offering calibrated tactical carrots rather than massive, unconditional relief, the administration buys critical time while pressuring the regime to keep the Strait mostly open for transit.

While this MOU is unlikely to result in a long-term deal that props up the regime with ample cash to restore their internal power and project threats externally, it undoubtedly causes real and optical damage in the short term. Given the dynamic nature of this temporary pause and the uncertainty ahead, a comprehensive assessment of the entire war and the MOU remains difficult. However, the long-term interests of the US and Israel remain fundamentally aligned: ensuring that Iran can never become a nuclear state, which includes preventing them from fortifying their defenses against future attacks on their nuclear program.

The widespread fear that this temporary pause will inevitably morph into a weak, permanent revival of the JCPOA overlooks the core friction between the two sides. A long-term, comprehensive deal remains highly improbable because Tehran is deeply unlikely to meet the stringent, verifiable benchmarks regarding uranium enrichment and extraction required for lasting relief.

Furthermore, once the Strait is cleared, the immediate leverage of a total blockade diminishes, and the US emerges with a clearer understanding of Iran’s maritime disruption playbook. Geopolitics frequently demands an appearance of tactical retreat to secure a position of greater strategic readiness. This temporary pause does not close the door on future pressure; instead, it preserves vital flexibility and resets the clock, ensuring that if hostilities resume, the choice to enforce a definitive resolution is made on more advantageous terms. We must measure the success of this deal by a clear benchmark: how much money actually flows to Tehran in the coming months versus the tangible concessions they make on their nuclear program.

Ultimately, the true test will be whether this administration avoids the pattern of its predecessors who merely kicked the can down the road with weak deals. We cannot judge this deal yet; we must give it time to play out.

Erez Levin is an advertising technologist trying to effect big pro-social changes in that industry and the world at large, currently focused on restoring society’s essential moral taboos against overt, hateful bigotry. He writes on this topic at elevin11.substack.com.