After a war launched in February to end the Iranian nuclear threat, the United States has agreed to a 60-day ceasefire, the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the lifting of its naval blockade, the unfreezing of Iranian assets, and an immense $300 billion reconstruction fund for the very regime the U.S. Air Force spent weeks degrading. The triumph turns out to be a recipe for everything Iran wanted and could not win on the battlefield.
President Donald Trump on Sunday issued a warning to Iran that it must stop its proxies from “causing trouble” in Lebanon or Tehran risks being “hit” by the United States.
“Iran must immediately stop their highly paid PROXIES in Lebanon from causing trouble,” Trump said in a Truth Social post. “If they don’t, we’ll hit Iran very hard again, just like we did last week, only harder!!!”
Benjamin Netanyahu portrays himself as a leader uniquely able to protect Israel’s security and deal effectively with Donald Trump.
But the US president, it seems, takes a very different view of the prime minister’s credentials. “Without me there would be no Israel,” Trump declared on Tuesday, two days after signing a peace agreement with Iran that showed a cavalier disregard for the security interests of America’s supposed ally. “Israel would have been blown up a long time ago, had I not gotten involved.”
Direct talks between the US and Iran have started in Switzerland, following the Iranian military’s announcement that it has closed the Strait of Hormuz again over Israel’s attacks on southern Lebanon.
Iran also cited a breach of its agreement with the US to end the war as a reason for the closure. However, the US military has said “traffic continues to flow” in the strait.
An Iranian delegation, including parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, arrived in Bürgenstock late on Saturday.
Iranians in exile who keep close contact with informants inside Iran report that anti-regime forces are “shocked” that the Americans made such a bad deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Under the deal, Iran will still be able to build more ballistic missiles, will still be able to support its proxies — Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Lebanon — and if the Americans have their way, Israel will have to stop its attacks against Hezbollah. In addition, Iran has been promised an initial $24 billion in unfrozen Iranian assets. More on the despair in Iran among those who want the regime overturned, and are fearful that the regime knows it has won and will feel emboldened to treat internal dissent even more harshly, can be found here: “‘We are all shocked’ by deal, worry that regime will feel it ‘won,’ Iranian source tells ‘Post,’” by Seth J. Frantzman, Jerusalem Post, June 15, 2026
Will be interesting to watch this unfold.
Iran’s military says it is closing the Strait of Hormuz over continuing Israeli strikes in Lebanon.
It accuses the US and Israel of violating the ceasefire deal.
As he defended the US-Iran deal at the White House press briefing on Thursday, Vice-President JD Vance brushed aside a question about whether President Donald Trump had positioned him as the “fall guy” for an agreement that is broadly unpopular with Republicans in Washington.
“I think the president was joking,” Vance said, referring to Trump’s comment the previous day that he might blame the vice-president if the deal collapses.
Vance has spent the week defending the memorandum of understanding with Iran.
When it comes to foreign policy, Donald Trump is neither hawk nor dove. He’s a dealmaker who plays differing sides off each other. In so doing, he ends up disappointing warmongers and peaceniks in equal measure.
When it comes to foreign policy, Donald Trump is neither hawk nor dove. He’s a dealmaker who plays differing sides off each other. In so doing, he ends up disappointing warmongers and peaceniks in equal measure.
A new round of direct talks between the US and Iran have been postponed after Vice-President JD Vance delayed a planned trip to Switzerland.
The White House announced late on Thursday that Vance would not be travelling to the talks and said the logistics had not been “simple or predictable”.
It comes a day after the US dropped its naval blockade of Iran after the two countries signed a deal aimed at ending the conflict.
Vice President JD Vance is criticizing some leading figures in Israel’s government for not getting on board more quickly with the American memorandum of understanding with Iran, stating that without another deal on the table, it is time to end the conflict. At a press conference Thursday at the White House, the vice president turned up the heat on America’s partner in the Iranian offensive. He warned against letting objections to the deal get personal, and admonished members of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s cabinet, saying Mr. Trump is the “only” head of state in the world that is currently “sympathetic” to the Jewish nation. “If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world,” he said.
🚨 WOW! JD Vance is DIRECTLY calling out Israeli cabinet members for their personal attacks on President Trump
"Donald J. Trump is the ONLY head of state in the ENTIRE WORLD who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time, and he happens to be the head of state… pic.twitter.com/0H9yGH8ubL
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) June 18, 2026
The anti-Trump view of world affairs, dictated this week by the Iranian mullahs, will hold that U.S. President Donald Trump has surrendered. It is worth remembering that when Hamas invaded Israel and massacred 1,200 people and kidnapped about 250 others on Oct. 7, 2023, Iran was well on its way toward developing nuclear weapons, hoped that the Hamas invasion of Israel would raise a general revolt in the West Bank and that a flying column would threaten Jerusalem, and stood ready to activate a powerful Hezbollah that had an estimated 150,000 rockets ready to fire at Israel. Hamas had 20,000 to 30,000 armed and trained terrorists in Gaza to conduct the war that had been unleashed.
A first reaction to US President Donald J. Trump’s “Memorandum of Understanding” (MOU) has already come from Tehran’s terrorist proxy, Hamas. The Iranian-backed group responsible for the October 7, 2023 massacre in Israel is openly calling to escalate attacks against Israel and signaling its intention to shift the center of its jihad (holy war) from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank.
The timing is not a coincidence.
The US-Iran memorandum of understanding announced on Wednesday amounts to a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and a deal to try to reach a final agreement on almost everything else.
President Donald Trump framed it as a major win for the US in a lengthy press conference at the G7 summit in France.
Both countries later confirmed the memo had been signed electronically on Wednesday and was now in effect.
Trump’s Iran deal driven by economics, fear of midterm defeat, not ideology – analysis
US President Donald Trump reportedly received a warning in recent weeks that keeping the Strait of Hormuz closed would “trigger a global recession – not just in the US, but across the entire world.”
The warning came from several economists and senior Trump administration officials.
Donald Trump’s Iran deal met with anger, relief and incredulity
Pakistan’s prime minister has hailed the “peaceful resolution” of the conflict between the US and Iran, while congratulating the leadership of both countries for signing an agreement that he claimed would immediately reopen of the strait of Hormuz.
But amid the celebrations from Shehbaz Sharif – who has served as mediator for the deal – the release of the memorandum of understanding (MOU) that gets the ball rolling on the next 60 days of negotiations between Iran and the US, has proven more divisive, eliciting a mixture of outrage, bewilderment, and relief.
Senior allies of Donald Trump have reportedly expressed doubts about the “memorandum of understanding” between the US and Iran.
John Ratcliffe, Donald Trump’s CIA director, Marco Rubio, the secretary of state and Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary, have apparently raised concerns.
The three men, all prominent members of Mr Trump’s inner circle, are said to be sceptical about how willing Iran genuinely is to make concessions on its nuclear programme, according to Axios.
🚨 BREAKING — IT'S OFFICIAL: President Trump has SIGNED the Memorandum of Understanding with Iran while at the Palace of Versailles in France
Iran has signed off as well, per Axios, and the deal is in effect IMMEDIATELY.
Warmongers are about to start screeching even LOUDER 🤣… pic.twitter.com/zs0E181Nxv
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) June 17, 2026
For the past two years, a steady stream of world leaders has flocked to Israel to cajole and pressure the only democracy in the Middle East into stopping its self-defense against Iran’s proxies in Gaza — Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad — who carried out the October 7 massacres and have launched more than 10,000 rockets into Israel, attempting to perpetrate mass slaughter. Let us hope that with US President Donald J. Trump’s new “Iran deal,” this abuse will stop. It is to be hoped that liberating Lebanon from Hezbollah will still be possible.
