Afrasianet - Oraib Al Rantawi - Now that the official text of the memorandum of understanding is in our hands, signed by the presidents of Iran and the United States, it has become possible to put the results of the war and the resulting balances in the balance of profit and loss, and to cut the cord of an endless debate about who won and who lost, who won and who was defeated.
Since the memorandum is limited to preliminary understandings, which pave the way for more difficult and more complex negotiations on the most important issues in the Iranian-American conflict, which were decided to end within 60 days, leaving the door open, to be extended – most likely – with the agreement of both parties, it is risky to consider what has been achieved as the end of the war, or to say goodbye to the scenario of a renewed war, although the passage of time reduces the likelihood of such a possibility.
However, the most important thing than looking at a detail here, and an item there in the aforementioned memorandum, is to try to foresee the image of the region and its balances in the "post-war" phase, recalling the "peacock" stances that Benjamin Netanyahu has taken in its market, hinting at the formation of a new Middle East, from the Caspian to the Eastern Mediterranean, in which "Greater Israel" plays a dominant role, and it is the one that pride has taken for sin, and "superiority" alone has become an option from the past, unworthy of its present. Israel came out of the "mawlid" with a little chickpeas, and returned to its size, according to its analysts.
In the War of Texts and "Souls"
There is a semblance of unanimity, among the enthusiastic supporters of the agreement, and its opponents in Washington and Tel Aviv alike, that the memorandum came in response to most of Iran's demands and conditions, which it has always made famous on the negotiating tables and passed through mediators, as the Iranian negotiator succeeded in imposing his "methodology" in negotiating on his American counterpart, and was able to separate the urgent files from the thorny files, and distributed the negotiation in two stages, unlike what the Trump administration wanted, and kept the final solution to the two most important issues from the perspective of Washington: Hormuz and Al-Nawawi for the second phase.
More importantly, the agreement was built on a "step for step" basis, meaning that Iran did not make itself a "testing ground" and did not accept "good implementation" monitoring unilaterally, as Washington wished.
The Iranian negotiator succeeded in imposing the Lebanese and Iranian "interdependence of the two tracks", within the framework of the theory of "unity of the squares", and Lebanon was mentioned three times in the first clause of the memorandum, which talks about the cessation of hostilities and the refraining from returning to the war and stopping it once the negotiations are completed in its second phase.
The Iranian negotiator spoke about Lebanon's sovereignty and territorial integrity, in response to Israel's excessive demands regarding the security belts and yellow zones. Even by imposing Israel's tendency to accelerate Washington's path in negotiations with Lebanon, in the hope of achieving a separation of tracks, by negotiating after failing to achieve it on the ground, no one will be able to deny the fact that the Islamabad process is what imposed the ceasefire and put Lebanon on the path of settlements.
The Iranian negotiator's most prominent achievement was to extract American recognition of Iran's peaceful civilian nuclear program (leaving the details to subsequent negotiations), to keep highly enriched uranium on Iranian soil, and to process it in cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), against Washington's conditions: "zero enrichment," to hand over stockpiles to the United States, voluntarily or under duress, and to destroy nuclear infrastructure underground and above.
Unless the memorandum mentions it, and it remains in the "souls", it is no less important than what is settled in the texts, there is no mention of Iran's missile program, but on the contrary, Trump returned on the sidelines of the "G7" to express his understanding that Iran has a missile program as long as the countries around it have such programs.
As for the "proxies" and "proxies", which were considered terrorist factions, they were mentioned as allies of Iran, enjoying the umbrella of cessation of hostilities, and were included in the understandings to end the war and not renew it.
The Iranian negotiator obtains American acknowledgments to temporarily lift sanctions on oil and petrochemical exports, and to take the necessary measures to enable Iran to sell its oil, to become permanent, as the negotiations progress and Tehran fulfills its obligations, and enables him to "liquidate" part of Iran's frozen funds, in preparation for the gradual release of all of them, and most importantly, to use them according to the Central Bank of Iran's deem, in contrast to previous attempts to limit it to "humanitarian" uses, as well as the "$300 billion fund", for reconstruction and development, Tehran has already included it in the list of "compensations."
In return for all this, Washington got what it had before the war, when the strait was open unconditionally and unpaid, and when the Iranian negotiator in Muscat and Geneva was remarkably responsive, as the Omanis and the British testified, to provide guarantees that would ensure the peaceful and civility of the program, and to accept a system of control, monitoring and verification, always within the framework of the "Fatwa of the Supreme Leader-20013" to prohibit and criminalize the manufacture and use of the bomb.
This prompted senior Israeli officials to say: If we had known that the outcome of the war would be like this, we would not have bothered to fight it from the beginning, and I think that a debate has broken out and will intensify in Washington, when the competing parties put the memorandum in the balance of profit and loss, and when they include it in the calculations and complexities of domestic politics.
Tour or War?
Washington, and especially Tel Aviv, lost this round of war, no regime that was overthrown, no people that were defeated, no minorities that revolted, and Trump's bet to "appoint a new leader for Iran," as he has said more than once, was disappointed. They lost this round, as they failed to achieve its three main official goals: eliminating the missile and nuclear programs, and destroying the "proxies" and arms.
They lost this round because there is a clear majority in Israel that believes that their "state" has emerged weaker, more isolated and ostracized, and with ambiguous relations with Washington, while Iran has emerged stronger, despite the killing of the political, spiritual, military and scientific leadership, and despite the enormous destruction inflicted on its institutions, industries, civilian objects, and the lives of its sons and daughters.
Iran has won the game of finger-biting and long breaths, absorbing shocks, steadfastness and steadfastness, fighting an "asymmetric war" competently, and engaging in complex negotiations, with greater ability.
This does not mean for a moment that the war is over, as obstacles and obstacles are still planted on the path of the 60-day negotiations, and those affected by the memorandum will plant more of them, especially Israel, which is active as it has never done before, to remedy what can be perceived, and the movement of its friends and allies from "lobbies" and "pressure groups" to pounce on an agreement, amid information that indicates divisions within the Trump administration, and the crystallization of a solid team opposed to the agreement, just as happened in Tehran, when a more hardline group rose up against the agreement. Those responsible for its achievement were accused of "treason" and "negligence".
Washington has lost the trust of many of its Arab allies, after failing to provide an umbrella for protection and deterrence to these countries in the face of Iranian strikes, and although it is likely to remain a major player in the region, its weight will decline with the entry of regional and international players into its stadiums and arenas.
Israel lost by moving from the project of a "potential ally", as it was planned to be, to a source of "latent threat", and the perception of it stabilized after the aggression on Doha, especially in the context of its attempts to implicate the Gulf states in a war that is not its own, and to view the physical losses it suffered as mere "collateral damage", which no one in Tel Aviv cares to stop at.
As for Iran, it has realized, and if it does not do so, it must be aware that it needs the Gulf states, at least most of them, especially after it was assured that without the role of the Omani mediator before, the Qatari mediator in the past, and the Saudi role, it would not have succeeded in developing a "exit strategy" that reserves many of its interests and rights, and that the time has come for a different kind of relationship with the Gulf states.
The Gulf states, which have been hit by what has befallen them, have emerged burdened with losses and distrust of the warring parties, albeit to varying degrees, and their need, as well as the need of other Arab countries, to build a regional system of security and cooperation, and to develop the "five-party alliance" that was active in preventing the outbreak of war from the outset, stopping it after its outbreak, and opening it to the membership of increasing Arab parties.
Especially after Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia have shown that they are indispensable parties to contain and contribute to resolving conflicts, Iran would not have been able to achieve what it has achieved without the help of this "flexible alliance", nor would Washington have a "strategy out" from this quagmire, without the efforts of these parties.
In my opinion, the region is a candidate to enter the threshold of a new phase, which is that only its countries are capable of maintaining their security and stability, ensuring their prosperity, and restoring the rights of their peoples, especially in Palestine. That there is no security for the region without its security, and there is no stability for it without its stability, and that in the beginning, it was the word.
