In many ways it was already the ceasefire that never was. But with the United States and Iran claiming to have hit dozens of targets each with air, drone and missile strikes in the past 48 hours, it’s increasingly hard to see where this goes next.
The new strikes are the latest in a series of back-and-forth attacks since the two sides first agreed to a shaky ceasefire in April and signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in June that was supposed to set the stage for a permanent end to the fighting.
Iran has claimed the US hasn’t lived up to its side of the deal; Washington has pushed back that it’s Tehran going back on its promises.
But US President Donald Trump is losing patience – especially this week, irked by the Iranian strikes while he met world leaders at the NATO summit in Turkey. The MoU with Iran is “over,” he declared on Wednesday, calling Iran’s leaders “cuckoo” and a “waste of time.”
Tehran has issued its own warnings – its parliament speaker and top negotiator posting on X: “If you strike, you’ll get hit.”
