Last Thursday, U.S. President Donald Trump announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Israel. My focus here is not on what was included in this memorandum, but rather on what was not included. It is also important to note that a Memorandum of Understanding is generally a political framework rather than a legally binding treaty. Its significance therefore lies less in its legal force and more in the strategic intentions and compromises it reveals. The document failed to address the core issues that drove the United States and Israel to strike Iran during the negotiation rounds: namely, the Iranian nuclear programme and its ballistic missile programme. Indeed, prior to the escalation, American and Israeli officials repeatedly emphasized that any sustainable settlement would require meaningful restrictions on Iran’s enrichment activities and its ballistic missile capabilities. Against that backdrop, the relative absence of these issues from the memorandum becomes politically significant. Furthermore, it made no mention of restoring the status quo ante in the Strait of Hormuz.
When major files that served as the very casus belli, or the catalysts for escalation, are entirely absent from signed agreements—and even from transitional negotiation phases—this absence itself carries profound political significance.
According to the Realist school of political science and Western strategic studies, spanning from the classics of Carl von Clausewitz to the contemporary theses of Colin S. Gray, victory is never defined by sheer military destruction. Instead, it is measured strictly by how closely the final strategic outcomes align with the political objectives declared at the onset of the conflict. Evaluating the current situation through this analytical lens reveals which side secured the greater advantage based on what was left out of the memorandum.
First: The Iranian Nuclear and Missile Programmes
Prior to the escalation, Washington and Tel Aviv adamantly insisted that any prospective agreement or de-escalation must entail the dismantling of Iran’s ballistic missile programme and the imposition of strict, permanent caps on its uranium enrichment. The complete absence of any such provisions in the MoU marks a significant retrenchment of the American-Israeli threshold of demands.
More importantly, the two issues most frequently cited as justification for escalation—the nuclear programme and ballistic missile capabilities—remain among the least clearly defined elements of the current arrangement. Whether this reflects a temporary deferral, a negotiating compromise, or unresolved disagreements remains unclear.
This indicates that Tehran succeeded in establishing a “status quo” that safeguards its core deterrent capabilities, representing a strategic victory for Iran in preserving its red lines. At the very least, Iran appears to have preserved many of the capabilities and negotiating positions it identified as essential before the conflict.
Second: The Strait of Hormuz
Before the war, maritime navigation through the Strait of Hormuz was free. The disruption of maritime security in the Strait emerged primarily as a consequence of the conflict rather than one of its original causes. Following the escalation, concerns over navigation security, drone threats, and potential disruptions to shipping lanes became an urgent international and American concern.
The absence of detailed provisions concerning Hormuz in the memorandum may therefore not necessarily indicate a strategic concession. Rather, it may reflect an expectation among the parties that freedom of navigation will gradually resume should broader tensions be reduced through implementation of the agreement. Allowing the current state of affairs to persist would nevertheless leave unresolved one of the conflict’s most strategically sensitive consequences.
Consequently, the outcome can be analyzed on two distinct levels. The first is a strategic victory for Iran, which successfully withstood intense military and economic pressure without relinquishing the pillars of its power—its nuclear architecture, missile programme, and maritime leverage. The second level is a tactical retreat by the U.S. and Israel. Signing an MoU that drops prior baseline demands demonstrates that Washington and Tel Aviv recognized that the cost of prolonged warfare or escalation far outweighed the cost of accepting a “truncated” agreement that falls short of their original objectives.
By omitting these critical files, Iran emerged from the confrontation with its geopolitical leverage largely intact. In the realm of high politics, “what is left unwritten” in treaties is often far more consequential than what is explicitly codified. The exclusion of these volatile Iranian files underscores that Iran successfully protected many of its strategic assets, making it the primary beneficiary, or at least the least harmed actor, in this round.
Furthermore, President Trump declared that following the final agreement, Iran would be incapable of developing a nuclear weapon. Ironically, acquiring a nuclear bomb was never a declared Iranian objective prior to the war. On the contrary, the official, long-standing policy of Iran—anchored by a religious fatwa from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei—prohibits the possession of weapons of mass destruction. Tehran has consistently maintained that its nuclear programme is strictly for civilian purposes, such as energy generation and nuclear medicine.
Therefore, when Trump proclaims that “Iran will not build a bomb,” he is effectively presenting to American and Israeli audiences an achievement that mirrors what Iran has long claimed about itself. Instead of conceding their inability to compel Iran to dismantle its ballistic missiles or substantially roll back its regional influence, Washington and Tel Aviv re-framed the narrative, marketing the outcome as: “The ultimate victory is that we prevented them from obtaining a nuclear bomb.”
When a cycle of conflict concludes without achieving its primary objectives—whether dismantling missiles, imposing regime change, or shuttering reactors—leaders face an acute dilemma in explaining the outcome to domestic constituencies. The standard recourse is to redefine the meaning of victory. Trump’s rhetoric represents a classic face-saving formula designed to justify an MoU stripped of several of its foundational demands.
An alternative interpretation, however, deserves consideration. Supporters of the American and Israeli position may argue that the purpose of military pressure was not necessarily the complete dismantlement of Iranian capabilities, but rather the degradation of critical infrastructure, the restoration of deterrence, and the demonstration of military superiority. Under this reading, Iran may have retained important capabilities, but only after sustaining significant economic, military, and political costs.
Ultimately, political rhetoric cannot alter the realities of the balance of power. If the final balance sheet of this war forces Iran merely to commit to restrictions it had already publicly endorsed, while retaining its ballistic missiles, its influence over Hormuz-related calculations, and its high-level uranium enrichment capabilities, then Tehran can reasonably argue that it preserved its core strategic interests. Meanwhile, Washington and Tel Aviv may have settled for a “rhetorical victory” that provides a potent media narrative for domestic consumption without fundamentally altering several of the geopolitical realities that originally motivated the confrontation.
The United States may have “won” if measured strictly by material losses inflicted, yet it remains impotent to translate this military dominance into a durable political reality on the ground. Iran, undoubtedly, has suffered immense damage, and it remains fundamentally incapable of inflicting a structural defeat that would shatter America’s status as a superpower. Nevertheless, through a strategy of asymmetric deterrence, Tehran succeeded in raising the costs of continued warfare to a threshold its adversaries could no longer tolerate.
In the calculus of political science, the actor that successfully preserves its core objectives and imposes its own parameters is the victor, even if it is the militarily weaker side.
Herein lies the paradox: the impotence of victory, and the victory of the impotent.
