Copies of the Iranian daily newspaper Hamshahri at a Tehran kiosk on June 18, 2026 which reads “Gone with the wind” and asserts that Trump has abandoned his original rationale for the attacking Iran (which he has).
Since announcing its existence on Sunday, President Donald Trump has fervently attempted to spin the new preliminary cease-fire agreement his administration made with Iran over the weekend as a victory for the U.S. Hardly anyone believes this, and nobody should.
On the contrary, the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, the text of which was released to the media on Wednesday, ratifies the reality on the ground that it is Iran that won this war. In his haste to close the book on a misadventure with which he had become bored and frustrated months ago, Trump has made previously unimaginable concessions to the Iranian regime that underscore how utterly he has failed in this war to leverage American military supremacy to achieve any meaningful strategic goals.
The MOU is merely a framework for an eventual final deal, supposedly to be negotiated on an extendable 60-day timetable. It is often vague and in places contradictory, but overall its key provisions are remarkably advantageous to Iran.
