A vague Iran deal leaves more questions than answers
WASHINGTON — The terms of a deal to end President Trump’s war with Iran remained a secret on Monday as both sides claimed victory and the months-long conflict reached a nebulous end.
The memorandum of understanding, providing a rough framework to conclude the war, was signed digitally Sunday, with a ceremony scheduled to take place on Friday in Switzerland, U.S. officials said.
Trump hailed the document as a breakthrough after months of negotiations. Yet its broad contours remained unclear more than a day after the deal was announced, as each side offered conflicting public messaging about what had been agreed.
Iran said it would continue regulating traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a strategic paradigm shift from the prewar status quo that was denied by the White House. The two sides expressed disagreement over whether the status of Iran’s ballistic missile program would be addressed in future negotiations, or whether Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon was a part of the deal.
And Trump administration officials rejected Iranian claims that the United States would provide immediate sanctions relief as misleading “spin.”
Hours later, another U.S. official suggested that Iran, in fact, might receive some relief at the front end.
“We are prepared to release frozen funds, and we are prepared to release sanctions,” a senior U.S. official told reporters on a call. “And we’ll do some small gestures of that in the beginning, if they make some small gestures to us that show they’re willing to meet their commitments as well.
“We’ll know over the next two to three weeks whether those understandings will turn into actual agreement,” the official added.
Trump started the war in February citing Iran’s nuclear program, which had expanded after he withdrew from a prior nuclear agreement negotiated by President Obama. That deal capped more than two years of intensive diplomacy but ultimately failed under the weight of political criticism from Republicans — led by Trump — over its inclusion of sanctions relief for Tehran.
Trump administration officials said the new agreement would include a commitment from Iran not to develop or purchase nuclear weapons — a vow the Islamic Republic has repeatedly made through the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Obama-era deal and a religious edict from the late supreme leader. Yet the enforcement mechanisms for policing Iran’s nuclear work were left to negotiate another day.
Iran could get sanctions relief
In an interview with CBS News, Vice President JD Vance acknowledged that Iran could get significant sanctions relief — and up to $300 billion in reconstruction funds — if they abide by U.S. terms, such as the full reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most important commercial waterways.
“Our expectation is that the strait is going to be opened in a toll-free way for the long term, and that’s the sort of thing that we’re going to figure out in these technical negotiations,” Vance said.
In a separate interview, he described the president’s policy as “extending an open hand” to Tehran.
“The hard-liners of the Iranian system will overemphasize the benefits that Iran gets,” he added, “while underemphasizing all the things that they have to concede, and all the things that they have to provide, in order to get these benefits.”
Uncertainty across the region
The news of peace came with a sense of bewilderment and uncertainty in a region that suffered as collateral damage through months of war.
Sunni Arab states that once hoped Iran would emerge weakened from the war issued tepid support for an agreement that could ultimately leave the fate of their oil exports at the whims of an emboldened adversary. And Israeli leaders, across the political aisle, expressed deep concerns over the deal in private, warning they would not be bound by an agreement to which they were not a party.
Israel’s decisions moving forward — particularly in Lebanon— may ultimately decide whether the agreement survives over the next 60 days, when Washington and Tehran plan on ironing out its more technical details.
Hours after word of the signing came out, a stream of cars crowded the highway leading to southern Lebanon, full of displaced families desperate to check on homes and villages they hadn’t seen for more than 100 days.
They did so in defiance of Lebanese officials, who called on people to remain where they were until an official end to war in Lebanon — a secondary front in the larger U.S.-Israel war on Iran that has nevertheless seen staggering levels of destruction.
A woman and her children return to their Lebanese village Monday following the ceasefire announcement.
(Mohammed Zaatari / Ap Photo/mohammed Zaatari)
In the more than three months since the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah attacked Israel, nearly 3,800 people have been killed, and almost a quarter of the country’s 6 million people are displaced. Israeli troops occupy more than 10% of Lebanese territory, leaving a trail of destruction that has seen swaths of the country’s south all but razed.
‘Everything is gone’
None of that discouraged Hassan Shareef from leaving where he was staying in Beirut at 7 a.m. to head to Nabatieh, one of south Lebanon’s largest cities and a frequent target of Israeli strikes in recent weeks, to check on his tailoring business.
“I wasn’t afraid. I had to come. But what I saw would make you cry,” he said. “Everything is gone. My house, I can’t live in it. And the business is destroyed.”
Aqeel Khalaf, an herbalist, hit the road in the early morning with his brother, son and daughter-in-law. They reached Nabatieh in two hours.
Yet it was less of a homecoming than Khalaf hoped: Israeli troops were still stationed near his village, a few miles down the road from where he stood in Nabatieh’s central market. Their house was tantalizingly close, but for the moment it might as well have been on the moon.
“It’s hard for me, but the Lebanese army told us we can’t go yet. We have no choice,” Khalaf said. “Maybe in 24 hours, when things crystallize with the deal.”
He could at least check on his shop here in the central market, though he already knew there would be damage: The family regularly checked satellite images of the area and saw the building was hit about a week ago.
Standing before it, Khalaf saw how the wall of the adjacent building had toppled onto the ground floor, flooding the shop with rubble and coating everything with a film of fine gray dust. A nearby blast had collapsed the roof.
“Nabatieh was hit very hard this time,” he said. Still, he could salvage something, he said, pointing to his son as he fished out boxes of herbal treatments from under the rubble.
Two ceasefires in the last two months, forged during U.S.-led talks between the Lebanese and Israeli governments but without Hezbollah or Iran’s involved, were broken as soon as they were announced. A previous ceasefire from November 2024 saw Hezbollah stop all attacks while Israel continued military operations in south Lebanon.
This iteration of the truce appeared to have more success: On Monday, Hezbollah launched no missiles but announced an attack on an Israeli force to stop its advance; and the Israeli military mostly stayed its fire as well, barring a number of shelling incidents and a drone strike on a car in the village of Kfar Tebnit that injured a journalist and killed one person, according to Lebanese media.
Obstacles to a durable peace
Lebanese army units, meanwhile, deployed in parts of the south, barring motorists from reaching areas near Israeli troops. Lebanon’s army remained on the sidelines during the war, but 30 soldiers, including a general, having been killed in Israeli attacks since March 2. Hezbollah attacks killed at least 30 Israeli soldiers and one civilian contractor.
Obstacles to a more durable peace remain. Israeli officials insist on freedom of action against Hezbollah, and they will create a so-called security zone in Lebanon indefinitely so to protect Israel’s northern border. For its part, Hezbollah says it will respond to any attack and will continue fighting until Israel withdraws.
Though the truce appeared to be holding for now, Khalaf, who had raced to reopen his Nabatieh shop after the 2024 ceasefire, was waiting this time. For now, he would take what stock he could and open a shop in Sidon or Beirut.
“We have to work and feed our families. But the damage is too much this time. I’ll come back when things are better,” he said. “And my home too. When I get to see it, even if it’s a mound of rubble, I’ll pitch a tent on it and rebuild.”
Wilner reported from Washington and Bulos from Nabatieh.
