* The U.S. agrees to release $25 billion of Iran’s frozen assets, including via direct cash transfers, cooperation among regional countries, and financial credit lines.
* Washington, in coordination with its regional allies, would prepare a reconstruction and development plan for Iran, to be negotiated and agreed with Tehran within 60 days.
What the US gets:
* Tehran agrees that it will neither produce nor acquire nuclear weapons.
* Pending a final agreement, Iran would maintain the current status of its nuclear programme, refraining from further uranium enrichment and expansion of nuclear facilities.
* The United States agrees to allow Iran to dilute its stockpile of highly enriched uranium on Iranian soil under a future comprehensive agreement.
* Iran’s nuclear programme, uranium enrichment activities and mechanisms for handling its stockpile of highly enriched uranium would be negotiated within 60 days of the memorandum and addressed in a final agreement.
Iran gained international credibility by adhering strictly to the JCPOA, even long after the Trump admin broke it. I doubt they will squander that by not adhering to whatever deal they negotiate next.
"Come across as", as much as I despise Iran's regime, it seems like it is de facto the only country actually doing anything other than strong words for Lebanon.
Too bad the US blunder happened too late for Gaza and Palestine.
Trump hasn’t (so far) demonstrated the ability to stop Israel from bombing and invading Lebanon, so I’m not sure what we can hope will change before Netanyahu leaves office.
Presumably there's the tacit acceptance that Iran would use that as an excuse to continue funding proxies and launching occasional missile attacks. A return to the status quo ante.
Iran didn’t insist on enrichment for weapons. They had verifiably stopped and then Trump threw away the deal where they agreed to stop. This is 100% Trump’s fault, from start to finish.
Are the terms of the deal public yet? If they're essentially a return to the status quo ante bellum, that would be a pretty embarrassing conclusion for the US (and would presumably further harden any belief within Iran that the only permanent regime-preserving solution involves accelerating the process of obtaining nuclear weapons).
>According to remarks carried by the Tasnim news agency, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said negotiations for a final deal will be held during a 60-day period, after verifying that the US implemented its commitments under the deal, including ending hostilities, lifting the blockade, and releasing frozen assets.
So, it's an even worse position for the US than before launching the war.
Didn’t Iran consider their previous US negotiations a sham? Why would they believe them this time? Feels like the US wants to approach them with these deals, reneg, and once Iran is like we don’t want anymore deals, then the US can point to them and be like, see they don’t want peace.
For one thing, the US has agreed to give Iran $12 billion of their frozen assets before negotiations start, and another $12 billion during the 60 day negotiation period. When you repeatedly bomb the other side while prior negotiations were ongoing, before having to conclude that a negotiated settlement is the only way out of this, you have to make big concessions to even get the other side to the negotiating table.
Iran was fully abiding by the JCPOA (Obama Iran deal) until Trump pulled out in his first term. Trump hates Obama so that was entirely out of spite.
What is surprising is how co-opted the Biden admin was by Israel, that they didn't even bother to even consider reentering it despite it being a Democratic party "win" when it was first announced.
No, they tried to negotiate a new deal, not go back to the one they had agreed to. Why would Iran trust any new negotiations?
Iran was naive enough to trust the US twice in the last year and HAD THEIR NEGOTIATING TEAM BOMBED! I'm shocked they even trust the US to hold up to the deal they signed today. I'm guessing US concessions on frozen assets was just too much to pass up.
I think if we’re honest, the most likely outcome under Kamela would be that the US would not have attacked Iran, so there would be nothing to negotiate. It’s possible Israel may have done so anyway without US support.
It looks like it is more an MoU than a deal, and I think that allows Trump the cover to drip feed out how humiliating it is, because this isn't the kind of band-aid you rip off all at once.
If I were a betting man I would bet that between now and Friday there will be too much news coverage of just how humiliating this is for the USA, how bad a deal it is, and how much of failure it is, and Trump himself will pull out of the deal. This has, allegedly, happened at least once.
But Iran now seem to be a bit better schooled in how to actually get him to agree, so perhaps they will be persuaded to smile a shit-eating grin while he takes a victory lap, and simply keep the most humiliating details of it under wraps until he signs.
How long it is before Trump claims to renegotiate it, who knows. Just the other day Trump said he might not renew USMCA — his own prior great achievement of loudly renegotiating NAFTA to be not significantly worse.
I can see the logic in what you’re saying, but Iran state media is reporting the deal includes “The US and its allies delivering reconstruction plans for Iran worth at least $300bn” (in addition to the $25B) but I don’t understand their use of the word “plan”? https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cj0grpyg4v1t?post=asset%3A1793...
Two diplomats briefed on the latest draft called it “an international ‘investment fund,’ which the United States would help facilitate in the event of a final deal,” and plans for which would be discussed during the initial 60-day negotiations period that the memorandum would kick off, the report says.
It appears to concern the authorisation of a sort of Marshall Plan inward investment fund that may end up holding that sort of amount of cash that the US effectively agrees to facilitate and allow.
But I guess a key thing is that it involves is the USA agreeing not to seize it. It would also implicitly allow businesses to do the reconstruction work without being sanctioned.
The conclusion has long been embarassing unless we live under a rock.
The US president has been played like a fool by the Israelis and Iran has inflicted a humiliating defeat to the US and its allies by leveraging cheap asymmetric warfare.
I think this war's first phase was clearly in Israel's favor, insofar as Israel's strategic goal is neutralizing Iran as a peer adversary. But the latter phases have not really gone how they (= Netanyahu) want/s; the ideal end state for Israel is an enormous civilian infrastructure cost to Iran that would subtract from military budgeting, but that isn't what the deal suggests.
(Intentionally targeting civilian infrastructure is, of course, a war crime.)
Israel seems to have also lost out because any further war crimes they commit will get Trump angry, he's desperate to keep Iran from returning fire and further wrecking his midterms.
But heck, if I were Iran I'd be wary after November. With Russia-style election rigging and spineless congress, Trump-Hegseth might resume the war crimes...
“Art of the deal.” Thousands of deaths and tens to hundreds of billions of dollars borrowed and spent to be in a worse position than before this started.
There have been persistent rumours that Iran will be allowed to charge new "environmental fees" for access, "to protect the ecosystem of the Strait" or somesuch.
(Secretary of War and former Fox News weekend anchor Pete Hegseth was on the news just this evening saying that the USA has been in control of the Strait the whole time, so I think the USA is arguing against your (correct) characterisation of the situation.)
Iranians have said they cannot charge a "toll" according to international law, but they can charge a "fee". Charging a fee for maintanance, environment or security is fine, so it will be just a different branding to the "toll". Personally I think they should charge an environmental fee with the amount of traffic going through there.
If I understand 'jeffbee correctly, I think they mean that Iran now has practical evidence that it can gum up the strait and therefore extract political concessions from it, even if they don't literally result in tolling.
(In other words, every barrel of oil that passes through the straight will now have an $X risk surcharge on it, whether or not that surcharge ends up in Iran's coffers.)
Trump also said he would refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve "right to the top" in 6 weeks and, instead, emptied it to its lowest level ever. He also said foreign investment in the United States would rise to 22 trillion dollars, but instead total foreign investment weakened to below $300 billion in 2025. Oh, and he also said tariffs were cutting the deficit by 25%, while he instead managed the deficit to a slightly higher level, even before counting the Iran War.
DoW under Trump has basically disfigured Iran militarily and at this point their leadership will have to be outright mad and suicidal or both to pursue a nuclear weapon ..
Much the contrary, it showed them that without a nuclear weapon they can be attacked willy-nilly by the USA/Israel, without a nuke it doesn't matter what kind of agreement or deal they reach it can always be reneged.
Iran looks at North Korea and want that kind of regime stability, at least from outside threats.
Iran can desire as much as they like to "want" and "have" a nuclear program .. but the objective truth is that US just crushed the intellectual and philosophical source of this desire by eliminating their rolodex of ayatollahs ... whether you agree or not with this approach is a different matter but US has been successful in scrubbing the source of that desire so aggressively that the new hopefuls are simply exhausted to play the nuclear long game ...
To the contrary, the war has proven to Iran how critical their nuclear program is to the regime's, and maybe Iran's, survival.
US wouldn't go into such a war against Russia, because of their nuclear program. They wouldn't have attacked Iran if they already had a standing nuclear program with strategic nuclear weaponary.
What are their options now? Strategically focus on rebuilding their defense capabilities with most likely the same result in 10-25 years or strategically focus on nuclear weapons so that adversaries won't rage war against them like that again in 10-25 years?
You are theoretically right to assume this but practically this will never happen (i.e iran's nuclear ambitions) .. let me explain
As Putin once quipped, "having the desire to do something is very different from having the ability to do something" ..
Iran can desire as much as they like to "want" and "have" a nuclear program .. but the objective truth is that US just crushed the intellectual and philosophical source of this desire by eliminating their rolodex of ayatollahs ... whether you agree or not with this approach is a different matter but US has been successful in scrubbing the source of that desire so aggressively that the new hopefuls are simply exhausted to play the nuclear long game ..
Now at a personal note, I live between Dubai and London (previously Hamburg) and all these places have a significant Iranian diaspore and not a single one of those people in my circle is against what the US did and is doing in Iran ..
What hilarious though is that some HN folks have such vitriolic hate for Trump (based on the comments of the OP's post) that they'd rather see Iran have a nuclear capability than admitting that the defanging of Iran's nuclear program has been a good thing for the world ...
> and not a single one of those people in my circle is against what the US did and is doing in Iran ..
Interestingly the Iranians I've talked to (Eg: a married couple both with nuclear physics degrees from Iran who bailed out long long ago) would prefer to see Iran still being monitored and kept in check - they are concerned that Trump has not defanged the HEU program, merely scattered and set it back somewhat, while at the same time increasing the likelihood of rogue use of HEU and or those cache's being fed into an actual unchecked weapons program elsewhere.
A big issue, not so much discussed, is where exactly has the HEU ended up, in how many parts, and under whose control. Was it buried under rubble? Is it secure in a void? Was it moved and sequestered into multiple parts before Trump went loco?
The US, under Trump, has moved from a state in which
* regular checks kept HEU processing in Iran under agreed limits,
* tunnels were traversed and inertially mapped,
* leaders were known, and communicated with
to a state in which
* tunnels have been expanded, unmapped
* locations of and numbers of HEU caches are no longer known,
* "leadership" has devolved into a mosaic of cells such that, at best, one or two people know where all HEU caches are, more probably no single person knows where the caches are.
In this later, current state it's far more probable that one or more rogue cells may take their HEU caches and attempt to maximise damage to the US and or Israel.
The DoD under Trump has literally made a poor situation far far worse and greatly increased the likelihood of rogue nuclear weapons.
> The most alarming aspect of 60% enrichment is how close it brings a country to weapons-grade material 4344. The enrichment work required to move from 60% to 90% is substantially less than the work needed to reach 60% from natural uranium 4546. This means a country with 60% enriched uranium stockpiles could potentially produce weapons-grade material in a matter of weeks or even days.
You left out the part that they went past the 3.5% after Trump pulled out of the deal. While they were in it, they were complying fully as per IAEA and the US State department themselves.
I didn't leave out anything. I was making a factual statement that the Iranian nuclear program had already been "accelerated" to a point where objectively, with the engineering expertise they doubtlessly have, they could have potentially built a bomb within weeks or months, as the most difficult and time-consuming part was already done, which is why nonproliferation proponents get so upset about that level of enrichment.
Whether this is Trump's or Biden's or Joe Rogan's or a space alien's fault is for other commenters to discuss. I do not find the politics interesting. Nuclear science is interesting.
> they could have potentially built a bomb within weeks or months...
Come on now Netanyahu. They've been saying that for last 30 years, no one believes that anymore! The fact is Iran was adhering to the JCPOA and it could have been a viable solution to all this for years to come, until Trump pulled out.
This would be a lot more concerning if it wasn't widely known that Israel also illegally holds nuclear weapons of its own and therefore should have been sanctioned by the US for decades. Not having nukes is how Iran got here in the first place - the POTUS unilaterally withdrawing from their agreement and bombing them in the middle of negotiations. For all the portrayals of the Iranian government as "lunatics" over the years, getting to nuclear ASAP is the only logical move for a country in Iran's position - just look at how the US went back on its sabre rattling against North Korea once they demonstrated nuclear capabilities.
You don't have to think the Iranian government is in any way "good" but there's literally no logical reason for them not to desperately try to get their hands on nuclear weapons at this point. They have no reason to trust the West to ever follow through on any promises again.
> Reopening the Strait of Hormuz within 30 days "under Iranian arrangements"
Oh my goodness. So it stays closed for the better part of a month (or more, who knows), then opens up with each ship paying Iran for passage. I very much look forward to how this will be spun as some kind of a "win" for the United States.
We'll see if it happens. Quote: "mediators will facilitate a series of meetings this week. These pre-implementation discussions will lay the foundation for the technical talks and the official signing ceremony." It's concepts of a plan all over again
Is this going to end Israel’s offensive into Lebanon? It isn’t clear. It may be that Israel has permanently expanded its borders into the ethnically cleansed southern Lebanon just like it has into Syria recently. This is what Katz is saying:
It's an agreement between the US and Iran. Israel will defend its people, whatever that takes, as any right-minded nation should, no matter how dispicable the tactics used by the other side.
It's a war between Israel and the US vs Iran that was literally initiated by the US after a meeting between Trump and Netanyahu.
Also Israel is a rogue state that has been committing war crimes including genocide and is engaging in expansionist wars worse at this point than Russia's. It's in everyone's interest that Israel be either stopped or undergo a regime change that abandons Apartheid and creates a multicultural Western democracy.
After 400 years of Ottoman rule, we the Brits took that region because we won WWI. We gave some to different Arab groups, and some to the Israelis. The muslim religious head of Jerusalem wrote fan mail to Hitler advocating for the Final Solution. The hostility toward Jews had been whipped up for years and the general unwillingness of the neighboring regions to agree to the lines that the UK delegated to the UN is why after we left the region descended into war. The Israelis held on to their land. The Iranian mullahs came along in the 70s and jumped onto the cause because they feed on hate. My father was an advocate of the Iranian regime, because he was a vulnerable conflict survivor with deep psychological issues. But I saw what they were peddling 45 years ago and I heard what they were inculcating in him, through the mullahs that they trained and sent to the UK. They love to stress the idea of Abraham sacrificing his children. These are people that use children in war. They fire their rockets and shoot their guns where their own civilians will get hurt in the counterattack because they are just pawns to them. They sent young boys to the frontlines against the Iraqis and they use human shield tactics against the Israelis. It's a tragedy when innocents die, but against a foe that uses innocents in the propaganda war, only steely resolve and self-preservation will rid this world of the scourge that is these Iranian mullahs.
For sure, but the eventually-settled-upon rationale was some kind of nuclear deterrence. To walk away with Iran (likely) to maintain its uranium stockpile + possible toll control of the strait is such a complete and utter self-own.
I’m an Iranian in my 40s, and the regime and Western countries have been negotiating for most of my life. I remember being in high school when the first nuclear talks began, and ever since, it has been a never-ending series of talks, understandings, and plans without any real conclusion. I remember there were cases when they talked for weeks, and their main achievement was agreement on the time and place of the next negotiations. Today’s “deal” is no different. No party is releasing an official text; apparently, it’s not a real deal but a memorandum of understanding outlining a plan for further talks over the next 60 days. Another 60 days on top of the last two decades.
And all of these have only bought time and money for the regime to continue its nuclear ambitions, terrorism plans, and oppress the people of Iran, including almost daily executions of innocent protestors during the last few months as these negotiations went on.
The truth is, it won’t be possible to solve this issue with this approach. You can’t get a snake to sign a document to agree not to be poisonous anymore.
Iranian here as well.
This war was a complete disaster, US bombed our kids, our homes and killed more than 3000 people.
I’ll be the first one in line to spit on IRGC. I had my cousin sent to Evin for six months after the Mahsa uprising. She was tortured and will never live a normal life again. But I’m glad IRGC defended the land and didn’t let US and Israel turn it into another Syria.
I think that internal Iranian issues should only be dealt with from within. I’m not going to celebrate the West attempting to interfere in our affairs.
Right now half the country supports the IRGC and this war increased the number of hardliners in the “Majles”. Just look at the new IRGC commanders in charge.
If the West genuinely was interested in helping the Iranian people, they would start by taking away the sanctions that our suffocating our people.
In short, I agree with your central argument, which ironically coincides with the regime’s talking points: “dialogue with the West is useless.”
Dictators are established when someone is attacking or meddling in a country, which UK and US were genuinely doing from 1950s till now in Iran.
Current government is a product of western actions in Iran.
It’s short sighted. If in 1950s they left Iran alone, the IRGC would disappear a long time ago because their strong grip would not be needed nor justified.
But every western leader wants to record a win, and constant attacks further increases the required grip of the IRGC.
The original Obama deal kept Iran isolated and their nuclear stockpile limited. It didn't do anything for the Iranian people and that's tragic but until trump it wasn't the west's problem. The decades of negotiations was to everyone's benefit (except the Iranian people)
Now it is the wests problem (with the strait) but even now no one is going to send an army to Iran.
It actually does, how about not dying from US/Israeli bombs? People tend to forget there is a human cost to this and not only oil and money involved. There are 3.5k people dead in Iran many more injured. The US killed indian sailors in the last couple of days, guess the remaining ones will be happy to not live with this danger.
I wonder how the stock markets will react tomorrow. I know someone who turned $6k into $150k by buying options on war related news. The logic is that the markets will almost certainly go up, so bet big at a time like this.
It sounded like an easy way to lose $6k, but maybe the upside is worth the risk. I don’t have any experience to know whether this is a sufficiently good bet though.
> The logic is that the markets will almost certainly go up
The markets go up because people buy expecting that the markets will go up, which causes sellers to increase their price because they expect people will pay more because of FOMO, which people still buy because they expect the market to go up further.
Institutional investors get to trade outside of hours that most ordinary people can't; presuming that this is net positive for markets, they will already be up when the bell rings.
I have it on good authority there are still ww1 mines in the North Sea. Mines drift. At best you know the co-ordinates of where you released them from a ship.
Peace - in whatever form is something the world desperately needs at this point.
Having said that, I'll give it three days until Israel does some shit and undos all of this.
Honestly I think that's "Trump's win", and is probably all he cares about. Now he gets to funnel all these reconstruction contracts to his buddies, prioritizing anyone who gives him a "donation".
It's just a 60-day cease fire extension, according to the New York Times.
Trump posted something on Truth Social. There's no announcement on the U.S. Department of State site. That's full of a deal between the US Government and the Ultimate Fighting Championship people.
Compare with the April 8th ceasefire.[2]
Al Jazeera, which reports on this in detail because their readership is in the target area, is trying to figure it out.[3]
It's a ridiculous situation that requires ridicule. And further I will bet you (or polymarket) that someone will nominate trump for the Nobel prize for this deal.
Somewhere it's written that he and his team discussed internally about refusing it, but thought that action would be considered arrogant and diplomatically bad form.
What are the odds of the optimal deal being reached on Trump's birthday (Eastern Time)? Who knows, maybe US stalled before, and/or gave a little extra concession to conclude today.
You are probably right it was timed deliberately this way, this is why the Iranians also
didn't rush it ...
> Iran waited until the clock passed midnight local time to finalize the agreement, because it did not want the momentous occasion to coincide with President Trump’s birthday on Sunday, according to two Iranian officials who could not be identified because of the matter’s sensitivity. The seven-and-half-hour time difference allowed both Tehran and Washington to claim their preferred version of when the deal was finalized. President Trump had said it would be on Sunday, and Iran had said it would be on a later day.[0]
Trump says "The Deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran is now complete." The deal opens the Strait of Hormuz to all, while leaving the thorniest nuclear issues for another day.
According to the NY times, its a 60 day ceasefire on all fronts, and a return to pre-war status on issues like the (blockade, tolls, nuclear program, sanctions) starting this coming Friday. Also on Friday, a new round of negotiations will begin to discuss these issues.
So basically, both sides agreed to go back to the pre-war status quo for 60 days while negotiations continue.
Except one thing so far, apparently Trump has agreed to unfreeze Iranian financial assets.
Remember: the reason Trump said Obama's nuclear agreement was terrible was because Obama was "paying the Iranians to not develop nuclear weapons". What Obama did, was pay them out of these frozen assets. Which trump just gave them back for free, and without a nuclear deal.
> Tehran agrees that it will neither produce nor acquire nuclear weapons.
Of course they do. They have always said they don’t want nuclear weapons while pursuing them relentlessly.
> Iran’s nuclear programme, uranium enrichment activities and mechanisms for handling its stockpile of highly enriched uranium would be negotiated within 60 days of the memorandum and addressed in a final agreement.
If that is still to be discussed, then what have they been discussing so far? That has always been the main issue.
> If that is still to be discussed, then what have they been discussing so far? That has always been the main issue.
If the agreement means Iran seriously agrees to dilute (which boils down to destroying) it's nuclear stockpile, with UN or US or ... witnesses, that's pretty damn new.
Iran hasn't agreed to that. United States agrees to allow Iran to dilute its stockpile of highly enriched uranium on Iranian soil under a future comprehensive agreement.
Trump released Iran's frozen assets, in return for them opening the straight and thereby dropping oil prices before the midterm elections.
Reminder, the reason Trump hated the Obama deal was because he construed it as paying Iran not to develop nuclear weapons. Obama was paying Iran with the money from Iran's frozen assets. Trump's deal gives them that money, and has no nuclear agreement.
He didn't hate the Obama deal, he hated Obama therefore everything he does has to be criticized and torn down. If that deal had Iran paying the US, Trump would have said the color of the money was no good. And his supporters would eat it up.
This completely ignores the shareholder value to the military industrial complex and the truth machine value of prediction markets from the not-insider traders.
The US' limitations in its ability to project power have been exposed. Having American bases in the middle east has been shown to be nothing but a liability for host countries. And Iran has proven that it can withstand anything the US is willing to throw at it, and hit back hard, over a relatively prolonged period.
And Iran has shown that its constitution is strong and power succession is effective even after a massive decapitation strike. There was seemingly zero turmoil, control appears to have been maintained without issue.
And Iran's non nuclear option of controlling the strait has been tested andd shown to be highly effective.
And Iran has gained significant operational experience with its massive stores of drones and missles.
And the US has lost multiple billion dollar intelligence installations in the region.
And Americans have been made aware of the Israel lobby like never before, and Trump is in a very difficult position heading into the midterms.
> And Iran has proven that it can withstand anything the US is willing to throw at it, and hit back hard, over a relatively prolonged period.
Absolutely not. But Trump made two huge mistakes: 1) not imposing the naval blockade from the very start, 2) stopping the military offensive after only roughly a month, when about 50% of the Iranian missile stockpile was still intact. We must resume combat operations, bomb Iran until they are unable to fire back, and use their frozen funds to pay for damages to neighboring countries. It is absurd to offer Iran sanctions relief or "reparations," and makes Trump look incredibly weak.
Other things should also be done in parallel, such as actively hunting down and sinking Iran's "shadow fleet" of vessels, around the world and relentlessly until they are unable to export a single drop of oil by sea. We could also take their bridges and railroads and further deal a huge blow to trade with other nations by land. An invading force isn't needed for any of this.
which is of course the real kicker, The Gulf states are going to pay for the adventure and deal with an emboldened Iran and their damaged economies and infrastructure. Having US bases in the region has turned from a security guarantee into a disaster, the implications of this are pretty obvious.
...and then you woke up and realised that Iran never allowed those inspectors to inspect the actually important facilities and started removing inspectors from the country in 2023 under Biden.
During the time of JCPOA (original, between Iran and the P5+1) inspectors had access to where they wanted to go (sometimes with friction, sure) and were able to place tamper resistant / tamper revealing instrumentation, air filters, and spectrometers - effectively creating a data record that could place a stochastic cap on {enrichment level, volume}.
After Trump ripped up that agreement during his first term, withdrawing from the pact in 2018, that was no longer the case - leading to your linked 2023 statement.
The JCPOA was a huge mistake. Even assuming that it truthfully capped enrichment and prevented the development of an atomic bomb, at the same time it enriched the nation and therefore allowed Iran to finance terrorism and ballistic missiles.
That's naive and simplistic. Your counterparty isn't going to agree to a deal if they get nothing in return. "Stop doing nuclear stuff or else" isn't a deal, it's a demand.
And this fiasco proves that the US can't really do enough militarily if Iran just decides they don't want to abide by a deal/demand. Sure, this war was costly and painful for Iran, but they're coming out of it with better terms than they had before the war.
Biden was elected _after_ Trump broke the deal so it's unclear why you think that tells us anything about what would have happened had the United States honored the treaty.
The crisis exists because Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons. That's the root issue.
JCPOA was never a permanent solution. Under JCPOA, Iran agreed to temporarily cap enrichment for 15 years until 2030. After which, Iran could enrich freely.
JCPOA had no extension framework, the deal could not be extended without being renegotiated. And Iranian officials refused to agree to permanent enrichment caps, they said the 15-year sunset on enrichment was a non-negotiable.
That's a badly misleading framing of the situation.
The U.S. intelligence community said for more than a year that Iran was weeks away from enriching uranium further to bomb grade, said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association.
"That is extremely worrisome but that is not weeks away from having a nuclear weapon and not weeks away from having a nuclear weapon that can be loaded on a nuclear missile," Kimball said.
"My understanding from non-governmental sources and the internal assessment of the (intelligence community) is that they believe it would take several months or more to fashion the highly enriched uranium bomb grade into a nuclear device, and one to two years to manufacture a small light nuclear device," Kimball said.
Former Iranian Majles member Ali Motahari said in an April 24, 2022 interview on ISCA News (Iran) that when Iran began developing its nuclear program, the goal was to build a nuclear bomb. He said that there is no need to beat around the bush, and that the bomb would have been used as a "means of intimidation" in accordance with a Quranic verse about striking "fear in the hearts of the enemies of Allah."
"When we began our nuclear activity, our goal was indeed to build a bomb,” former Iranian politician Ali Motahari told ISCA News. “There is no need to beat around the bush,” he said.
When asked if saying this publicly will negatively affect the ongoing JCPOA negotiations, Motahari answered: "Nobody notices what I am saying."
He wasn't a member at the time of those statements nor did he have any involvement in their nuclear program. That's misleading to say the least.
Ali Motahari—former member of Iran’s Parliament—clarified that the interview dates back to May 2022, when he neither held a parliamentary seat nor any official role in nuclear affairs.[0]
So besides a single guy in Iran, are there official delegations that have concluded Iran was developing nuclear weapons? The US has had two National Intelligence Estimates, which consists of all 18 agencies in the intelligence community, conclude that they were not developing nukes.
You're misreading your own sources. The 2007 NIE and Gabbard's 2025 testimony both describe a nuclear weapons program that Iran "suspended in 2003". They confirm a nuclear weapons program existed, the opposite of what you're claiming.
And you want an official source: the IAEA concluded in May 2025 that Iran ran an "undeclared structured nuclear program" until the early 2000s using undeclared material. Then it found Iran in formal non-compliance in June of last year.
"Not building a warhead today" and "never pursued weapons" are different claims, and you swapped one for the other.
I never swapped claims. We're talking about nuclear weapons and why the US started a war with Iran this year due to this supposed "crisis" (in your words) but there's no evidence that a threat is imminent. The NIEs were just one data point against your claim; the burden is still on you to show who else agrees with the assesment that this is a crisis.
> IAEA concluded in May 2025 that Iran ran an "undeclared structured nuclear program" until the early 2000s
"nuclear program" is not the same as a weapons program and the IAEA sounding alarm bells over policy violations is not a conclusion that Iran is/was on a nuclear warpath.
Name the civilian use for Iran's 440 kg of 60% enriched uranium. There isn't one. No power reactor uses it (those run on 3-5%), no research reactor needs it (~20% max), and it sits 98-99% of the way enriched weapons-grade. Iran has enough fissile material for multiple bombs with under two weeks of further enrichment. There is no civilian use for this material. Iran enriched this material, under a mountain, in violation of IAEA requirements, at a site it hid from IAEA investigators until it got caught lying, while stonewalling compliance investigators for years.
Even your own source, the 2025 Annual Threat Assessment report, states: "Iran's enriched uranium stockpile is at its highest levels and is unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons."
What's your justification for Iran producing this material, if not for a nuclear weapons program?
The 2025 unclassified report does not assess that, but the 2024 one did. Money quote:
Iran has greatly expanded its nuclear program, reduced IAEA monitoring, and undertaken activities that better position it to produce a nuclear device, if it chooses to do so.
Also, that 2025 unclassified report was released before the June 2025 enrichment numbers I shared; these numbers would have influenced the report, and you dodged the question:
What's your justification for Iran producing 440kg of highly enriched 60% material, in secret deep under a mountain in violation of IAEA agreements, if not for a nuclear weapons program?
For unrelated reasons I personally don't believe Iran was ever pursuing a nuclear weapon, just edging enrichment for leverage.
That said, this:
The US has had two National Intelligence Estimates, which consists of all 18 agencies in the intelligence community, conclude that they were not developing nukes.
has little weight given these were / are the same US intell agencies that were blindsided and caught pants down unaware and in the dark about the 1998 India / Pakistan nuclear test exchange.
The core reason those sunset dates exist is because Iranian officials stated that a sunset on enrichment limits was a non-negotiable. They would not sign a deal without them.
Claiming "agreements are renegotiated and extended" is hypothetical. What incentive does Iran have to agree to enrichment caps post-2030? Why would Iran give up its strongest negotiating card, its nuclear program?
Under JCPOA, Iran capped its nuclear program for 15 years in exchange for:
* Global sanctions relief
* $100-150 billion in frozen assets
* Access to the global oil market
Iran in 2030 under JCPOA already has access to all three. The US already played its best cards to get Iran to agree to JCPOA. The US has little new to offer, other than resumed sanctions.
Under a JCPOA extension, why would items like access to the global oil markets (in addition to sanctions) not be part of the negotiations?
And with JCPOA and its possible continuation, that was a joint agreement among a number of countries - in the current situation, it’s just the U.S./Israel (+ them trying to impose their will on other countries to go along with any carrots/sticks).
> Claiming "agreements are renegotiated and extended" is hypothetical.
What's not hypothetical is that, under the deal, they agreed to not enrich until 2030. What's not hypothetical is that Trump abandoned the deal, with nothing to replace it, allowing them to start enriching in 2017 instead.
And if you're going to claim that renegotiation is hypothetical, then you also have to agree that any other possible future outcome, including one in which Iran develops a functional nuclear weapon, is also hypothetical.
We had a once in a lifetime opportunity to completely destroy the theocratic regime and we did not finish the job. This "deal" (or what transpired of it) is pathetic and will only allow the mullahs to rearm and come back stronger in the future. We will live to regret not resuming combat operations and weakening the regime until it isn't a threat to anyone.
That would require an invading force. Not worth it when we could keep Iran isolated and under sanctions and under nuclear inspections by doing nothing.
Being attacked strengthens a nations unity, strengthens regimes, and eliminates room for dissent - did you miss 9/11? Oct 7th? Pearl harbour? The blitz?
It's the last bump before I liquidate all my stocks. I predict that the crash will come at the end or the beginning of the next president which is likely democrat.
Not that it's democrat's fault but democrat is more disciplined
I have some thoughts on that. It’s possible that the current administration’s lack of oversight has artificially propped up the stock market. If the next president decides to return to a more traditional rules based structure, the market will probably react very poorly. US debt is also getting more expensive and interest is ballooning.
Making the country less desirable to the most skilled immigrants and eroding the capabilities of the strongest research universities will also mean there is probably hell to pay in the medium term.
The swing of the market based on the president's crazy tweets is just insane. This cannot go on for much longer. I will be parking my money at a safer place
Time in the market beats timing the market, bears have predicted (large number) out of the last (smaller number) recessions, etc. None of this is novel. "Predicting" a stock crash due to political reasons is effectively just a fancy restatement of anti-those-politics views; and it isn't substantive, especially when the prediction comes with a years-long window.
Yeah, meanwhile all the wealthy people actively manage their port with an insane amount of efforts. They would compensate hedge fund manager with insane amount of money.
Then, they turn around and tell average people to forget about the investment. Just park your money in the index fund over the long run. I mean, if you are either stupid or don't have time, then yeah please only do index fund.
I think it may happen before then. That's why I'm thinking of liquidating it soon-ish. Trump is doing too much crazy things. He cannot prop up the market for that long.
I plan to put most of the money in US t-bill (4 week) to earn 3% for now.
I don’t know how this is worse for the US or the World. Iran’s leadership and military was decapitated. It’s in the best interest of US, Europe and Israel and the Middle East. The nuclear program had a huge setback.
What are the counter arguments to these facts if we really end up in peace with Iran along with the bad actors gone too?
Very little has changed with the regime. The next in line stepped up, and it seems like the future will be business as usual.
The nuclear bogeyman is the wrong thing to focus on. Sure, we don't want Iran to have nuclear weapons, but they have a lot of other power in the region, and we've only confirmed and entrenched that power.
Yes, removing leadership is very important. It's why the US does it every 4 to 8 years. The Iranians aren't gone just because they lost a leader. If anything they proved resilient.
The biggest problems with all of this seem to be the knock-on effects, as well as the lead-up. Does this new deal actually do more than Obama's? Doubtful. Obama's didn't come with a girls' school blown to bits or a world leader assassinated.
Everything around the politics of the attack looks amateurish. Calling on Europe to attack Iran even though no deal is in place with them to do so. Not stopping Iranian strikes throughout the middle east. Not keeping Israel in line. The war has been dragging on for months, but "it'll end this week." No, this week. "Very close this week." "Very close this week."
Then there's the issue of shooting down cheap drones with expensive equipment. Why in the name of the Lord is it that Ukraine has been bombed by Shaheds for years and defended against them using NATO and US weapons, but operators of US equipment in the Middle East had nothing to show for it? Did the US not have direct access to how the Ukrainians were using their equipment in a war characterized by the use of drones and AI to an extent never before seen? Did the US decide to not look into that for years, or simply let it slide knowing Iran would bomb its neighbors? Why was it that Zelenskyy had to go to the Middle East to make sure they used American weapons correctly? It seems to me lately that every country that can produce a meaningful amount of oil has been directly or indirectly affected by American aggression, and one has to wonder why you'd do something so blatant in slow motion.
The president/head of the civilian government in Iran was ousted, probably by the IRGC. The IRGC took control of the mullahs a week after the war started. They already had power over them, but the fact us that without the war, the supreme guide election would have been a difficult power struggle with political concessions. It wasn't thanks to Trump, reinforcing the IRGC control of Iran's religious life.
The Iranian regime will be more repressive and more extreme.
The only good point about that is that it makes the regime weaker to domestic insurrections.
The bad actors were killed, and the children of the bad actors took over. Same regime, now more firmly in control.
While before, Iran's assets worldwide were frozen, they're now receiving back $25 billion of it. Also, the sanctions preventing them from selling their oil are lifted, so they now have oil revenue to expect.
Additionally, the US will pay $300 billion to "reconstruct" Iran.
Lastly, Iran has proved that it has de facto control of the Strait of Hormuz and the mightiest military in the world cannot prevent or stop it. Going forward, Iran will receives fees to allow transit of the strait.
How can you possibly think this isn't worse for the US and the world than the previous status quo?
if the strait actually reopens and Iran actually ships the enriched uranium out of the country this is a reasonable outcome imo. My concern centers on the fact that neither of these two outcomes are guaranteed by a long shot at this point.
Details here: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/iran-says-draft-us-d...
Key bullets:
What Iran gets:
* The U.S. agrees to release $25 billion of Iran’s frozen assets, including via direct cash transfers, cooperation among regional countries, and financial credit lines.
* Washington, in coordination with its regional allies, would prepare a reconstruction and development plan for Iran, to be negotiated and agreed with Tehran within 60 days.
What the US gets:
* Tehran agrees that it will neither produce nor acquire nuclear weapons.
* Pending a final agreement, Iran would maintain the current status of its nuclear programme, refraining from further uranium enrichment and expansion of nuclear facilities.
* The United States agrees to allow Iran to dilute its stockpile of highly enriched uranium on Iranian soil under a future comprehensive agreement.
* Iran’s nuclear programme, uranium enrichment activities and mechanisms for handling its stockpile of highly enriched uranium would be negotiated within 60 days of the memorandum and addressed in a final agreement.
This is nothing significantly different from the Obama P5+1:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_nuclear_deal
other than $300B war reparations
What they also get: lifting of international sanctions: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/uk-france-germany-italy...
US just gonna trust Iran regarding their nuclear program?
No trust or guessing need in that case, Iran will only pause their nuclear program, maybe not even that.
Iran gained international credibility by adhering strictly to the JCPOA, even long after the Trump admin broke it. I doubt they will squander that by not adhering to whatever deal they negotiate next.
Also, the u.s. makes Israel stop destroying Lebanon. Trump is already pressing Israel on this. Iran will come across as Lebanon's saviors.
> Iran will come across as Lebanon's saviors.
"Come across as", as much as I despise Iran's regime, it seems like it is de facto the only country actually doing anything other than strong words for Lebanon.
Too bad the US blunder happened too late for Gaza and Palestine.
Trump hasn’t (so far) demonstrated the ability to stop Israel from bombing and invading Lebanon, so I’m not sure what we can hope will change before Netanyahu leaves office.
Presumably there's the tacit acceptance that Iran would use that as an excuse to continue funding proxies and launching occasional missile attacks. A return to the status quo ante.
So basically the US is in a worse position than before the war. Expected, but still dumb and disappointing. (Par for the course for Trump.)
And of course all that sweet, sweet reconstruction/redevelopment money is going to go to Trump's buddies.
So basically, what we had before Trump started this stupid war at Bibi's behest.
Well, except for the tens of billions we spent, and the $324 billion we’re giving Iran, and also our ability to exert any force on the world.
Iran didn’t insist on enrichment for weapons. They had verifiably stopped and then Trump threw away the deal where they agreed to stop. This is 100% Trump’s fault, from start to finish.
Are the terms of the deal public yet? If they're essentially a return to the status quo ante bellum, that would be a pretty embarrassing conclusion for the US (and would presumably further harden any belief within Iran that the only permanent regime-preserving solution involves accelerating the process of obtaining nuclear weapons).
From Al Jazeera:
>According to remarks carried by the Tasnim news agency, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi said negotiations for a final deal will be held during a 60-day period, after verifying that the US implemented its commitments under the deal, including ending hostilities, lifting the blockade, and releasing frozen assets.
So, it's an even worse position for the US than before launching the war.
Didn’t Iran consider their previous US negotiations a sham? Why would they believe them this time? Feels like the US wants to approach them with these deals, reneg, and once Iran is like we don’t want anymore deals, then the US can point to them and be like, see they don’t want peace.
For one thing, the US has agreed to give Iran $12 billion of their frozen assets before negotiations start, and another $12 billion during the 60 day negotiation period. When you repeatedly bomb the other side while prior negotiations were ongoing, before having to conclude that a negotiated settlement is the only way out of this, you have to make big concessions to even get the other side to the negotiating table.
They were working for that agreement. trump canceled it, not they.
Iran was fully abiding by the JCPOA (Obama Iran deal) until Trump pulled out in his first term. Trump hates Obama so that was entirely out of spite.
What is surprising is how co-opted the Biden admin was by Israel, that they didn't even bother to even consider reentering it despite it being a Democratic party "win" when it was first announced.
Except Biden did try to restart the talks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93United_States_rel...
No, they tried to negotiate a new deal, not go back to the one they had agreed to. Why would Iran trust any new negotiations?
Iran was naive enough to trust the US twice in the last year and HAD THEIR NEGOTIATING TEAM BOMBED! I'm shocked they even trust the US to hold up to the deal they signed today. I'm guessing US concessions on frozen assets was just too much to pass up.
Why would Iran take that at that point? There's no trust.
I didn't say they would, just refuting the claim that:
> What is surprising is how co-opted the Biden admin was by Israel, that they didn't even bother to even consider reentering it
> So, it's an even worse position for the US than before launching the war.
True but continuing the war is worse for Trump. There was no real way to win.
Yes, the war was an obvious strategic blunder and (more importantly) an immoral and unjust invasion that should never have happened.
There is no way Iran didn't gain on this, US would be lucky to hit status quo. The clown in chief is a moron and they know it and will exploit it.
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I think if we’re honest, the most likely outcome under Kamela would be that the US would not have attacked Iran, so there would be nothing to negotiate. It’s possible Israel may have done so anyway without US support.
Buttery Males...I'm heard excuses for this guy for the epsteinth time that I struggle to think of anyone worse
Depends who you ask, I think.
It looks like it is more an MoU than a deal, and I think that allows Trump the cover to drip feed out how humiliating it is, because this isn't the kind of band-aid you rip off all at once.
If I were a betting man I would bet that between now and Friday there will be too much news coverage of just how humiliating this is for the USA, how bad a deal it is, and how much of failure it is, and Trump himself will pull out of the deal. This has, allegedly, happened at least once.
But Iran now seem to be a bit better schooled in how to actually get him to agree, so perhaps they will be persuaded to smile a shit-eating grin while he takes a victory lap, and simply keep the most humiliating details of it under wraps until he signs.
How long it is before Trump claims to renegotiate it, who knows. Just the other day Trump said he might not renew USMCA — his own prior great achievement of loudly renegotiating NAFTA to be not significantly worse.
I can see the logic in what you’re saying, but Iran state media is reporting the deal includes “The US and its allies delivering reconstruction plans for Iran worth at least $300bn” (in addition to the $25B) but I don’t understand their use of the word “plan”? https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cj0grpyg4v1t?post=asset%3A1793...
That has been kicking around in the deal discussions since the end of May, yeah. Nothing much about this MoU seems to have really changed since then:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/emerging-us-ira...
https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/iran-could-rece...
Two diplomats briefed on the latest draft called it “an international ‘investment fund,’ which the United States would help facilitate in the event of a final deal,” and plans for which would be discussed during the initial 60-day negotiations period that the memorandum would kick off, the report says.
It appears to concern the authorisation of a sort of Marshall Plan inward investment fund that may end up holding that sort of amount of cash that the US effectively agrees to facilitate and allow.
But I guess a key thing is that it involves is the USA agreeing not to seize it. It would also implicitly allow businesses to do the reconstruction work without being sanctioned.
The conclusion has long been embarassing unless we live under a rock.
The US president has been played like a fool by the Israelis and Iran has inflicted a humiliating defeat to the US and its allies by leveraging cheap asymmetric warfare.
I think this war's first phase was clearly in Israel's favor, insofar as Israel's strategic goal is neutralizing Iran as a peer adversary. But the latter phases have not really gone how they (= Netanyahu) want/s; the ideal end state for Israel is an enormous civilian infrastructure cost to Iran that would subtract from military budgeting, but that isn't what the deal suggests.
(Intentionally targeting civilian infrastructure is, of course, a war crime.)
Israel seems to have also lost out because any further war crimes they commit will get Trump angry, he's desperate to keep Iran from returning fire and further wrecking his midterms.
But heck, if I were Iran I'd be wary after November. With Russia-style election rigging and spineless congress, Trump-Hegseth might resume the war crimes...
> the US and its allies
Which allies?
Those in the middle east.
It's much worse than that. This gives Iran de jure control of traffic in the strait.
“Art of the deal.” Thousands of deaths and tens to hundreds of billions of dollars borrowed and spent to be in a worse position than before this started.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_2026_Iran_wa...
https://iran-cost-ticker.com/
iran has defacto control over traffic in the strait. what changes?
A toll booth.
There have been persistent rumours that Iran will be allowed to charge new "environmental fees" for access, "to protect the ecosystem of the Strait" or somesuch.
(Secretary of War and former Fox News weekend anchor Pete Hegseth was on the news just this evening saying that the USA has been in control of the Strait the whole time, so I think the USA is arguing against your (correct) characterisation of the situation.)
How so? Trump Claims Strait Will be ‘Permanently Toll Free’ Under Agreement With Iran (NYT headline).
Iranians have said they cannot charge a "toll" according to international law, but they can charge a "fee". Charging a fee for maintanance, environment or security is fine, so it will be just a different branding to the "toll". Personally I think they should charge an environmental fee with the amount of traffic going through there.
https://www.dawn.com/news/2007544/cannot-impose-tolls-on-str...
They will never charge such a fee, they will however charge a fee and name it "environmental fee".
If I understand 'jeffbee correctly, I think they mean that Iran now has practical evidence that it can gum up the strait and therefore extract political concessions from it, even if they don't literally result in tolling.
(In other words, every barrel of oil that passes through the straight will now have an $X risk surcharge on it, whether or not that surcharge ends up in Iran's coffers.)
If NYT's source is his tweet[1], he "authorize[s] the toll free opening of the strait", not claiming Iran agreed to it.
[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/trumptweets/comments/1u5xpoe/061426...
The persistent rumour about this deal process is that Iran will charge "environmental fees".
Trump also said he would refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve "right to the top" in 6 weeks and, instead, emptied it to its lowest level ever. He also said foreign investment in the United States would rise to 22 trillion dollars, but instead total foreign investment weakened to below $300 billion in 2025. Oh, and he also said tariffs were cutting the deficit by 25%, while he instead managed the deficit to a slightly higher level, even before counting the Iran War.
The commencement, duration and conclusion are all embarrassing for the US because the entire country is run by b list right wing media bros
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DoW under Trump has basically disfigured Iran militarily and at this point their leadership will have to be outright mad and suicidal or both to pursue a nuclear weapon ..
Much the contrary, it showed them that without a nuclear weapon they can be attacked willy-nilly by the USA/Israel, without a nuke it doesn't matter what kind of agreement or deal they reach it can always be reneged.
Iran looks at North Korea and want that kind of regime stability, at least from outside threats.
Iran can desire as much as they like to "want" and "have" a nuclear program .. but the objective truth is that US just crushed the intellectual and philosophical source of this desire by eliminating their rolodex of ayatollahs ... whether you agree or not with this approach is a different matter but US has been successful in scrubbing the source of that desire so aggressively that the new hopefuls are simply exhausted to play the nuclear long game ...
To the contrary, the war has proven to Iran how critical their nuclear program is to the regime's, and maybe Iran's, survival.
US wouldn't go into such a war against Russia, because of their nuclear program. They wouldn't have attacked Iran if they already had a standing nuclear program with strategic nuclear weaponary.
What are their options now? Strategically focus on rebuilding their defense capabilities with most likely the same result in 10-25 years or strategically focus on nuclear weapons so that adversaries won't rage war against them like that again in 10-25 years?
You are theoretically right to assume this but practically this will never happen (i.e iran's nuclear ambitions) .. let me explain
As Putin once quipped, "having the desire to do something is very different from having the ability to do something" ..
Iran can desire as much as they like to "want" and "have" a nuclear program .. but the objective truth is that US just crushed the intellectual and philosophical source of this desire by eliminating their rolodex of ayatollahs ... whether you agree or not with this approach is a different matter but US has been successful in scrubbing the source of that desire so aggressively that the new hopefuls are simply exhausted to play the nuclear long game ..
Now at a personal note, I live between Dubai and London (previously Hamburg) and all these places have a significant Iranian diaspore and not a single one of those people in my circle is against what the US did and is doing in Iran ..
What hilarious though is that some HN folks have such vitriolic hate for Trump (based on the comments of the OP's post) that they'd rather see Iran have a nuclear capability than admitting that the defanging of Iran's nuclear program has been a good thing for the world ...
> and not a single one of those people in my circle is against what the US did and is doing in Iran ..
Interestingly the Iranians I've talked to (Eg: a married couple both with nuclear physics degrees from Iran who bailed out long long ago) would prefer to see Iran still being monitored and kept in check - they are concerned that Trump has not defanged the HEU program, merely scattered and set it back somewhat, while at the same time increasing the likelihood of rogue use of HEU and or those cache's being fed into an actual unchecked weapons program elsewhere.
A big issue, not so much discussed, is where exactly has the HEU ended up, in how many parts, and under whose control. Was it buried under rubble? Is it secure in a void? Was it moved and sequestered into multiple parts before Trump went loco?
Why is Iran getting any money out of this ?
How do they still have any cards ?
The US, under Trump, has moved from a state in which
to a state in which In this later, current state it's far more probable that one or more rogue cells may take their HEU caches and attempt to maximise damage to the US and or Israel.The DoD under Trump has literally made a poor situation far far worse and greatly increased the likelihood of rogue nuclear weapons.
Maybe in the post-Putin power vacuum they'll have another option.
Iran had already passed the IAEA red-line of enriching uranium to 60%. They had already accomplished virtually all the hard parts of building a bomb.
https://fordow.net/blog/posts/enriched-uranium-proliferation...
Is a good explainer about uranium enrichment.
> The most alarming aspect of 60% enrichment is how close it brings a country to weapons-grade material 4344. The enrichment work required to move from 60% to 90% is substantially less than the work needed to reach 60% from natural uranium 4546. This means a country with 60% enriched uranium stockpiles could potentially produce weapons-grade material in a matter of weeks or even days.
You left out the part that they went past the 3.5% after Trump pulled out of the deal. While they were in it, they were complying fully as per IAEA and the US State department themselves.
I didn't leave out anything. I was making a factual statement that the Iranian nuclear program had already been "accelerated" to a point where objectively, with the engineering expertise they doubtlessly have, they could have potentially built a bomb within weeks or months, as the most difficult and time-consuming part was already done, which is why nonproliferation proponents get so upset about that level of enrichment.
Whether this is Trump's or Biden's or Joe Rogan's or a space alien's fault is for other commenters to discuss. I do not find the politics interesting. Nuclear science is interesting.
> they could have potentially built a bomb within weeks or months...
Come on now Netanyahu. They've been saying that for last 30 years, no one believes that anymore! The fact is Iran was adhering to the JCPOA and it could have been a viable solution to all this for years to come, until Trump pulled out.
This would be a lot more concerning if it wasn't widely known that Israel also illegally holds nuclear weapons of its own and therefore should have been sanctioned by the US for decades. Not having nukes is how Iran got here in the first place - the POTUS unilaterally withdrawing from their agreement and bombing them in the middle of negotiations. For all the portrayals of the Iranian government as "lunatics" over the years, getting to nuclear ASAP is the only logical move for a country in Iran's position - just look at how the US went back on its sabre rattling against North Korea once they demonstrated nuclear capabilities.
You don't have to think the Iranian government is in any way "good" but there's literally no logical reason for them not to desperately try to get their hands on nuclear weapons at this point. They have no reason to trust the West to ever follow through on any promises again.
> Reopening the Strait of Hormuz within 30 days "under Iranian arrangements"
Oh my goodness. So it stays closed for the better part of a month (or more, who knows), then opens up with each ship paying Iran for passage. I very much look forward to how this will be spun as some kind of a "win" for the United States.
I imagine: "Under Biden we would have surrendered to Iran and then the world would be destroyed by an alien probe looking for humpback whale sounds."
We'll see if it happens. Quote: "mediators will facilitate a series of meetings this week. These pre-implementation discussions will lay the foundation for the technical talks and the official signing ceremony." It's concepts of a plan all over again
Is this going to end Israel’s offensive into Lebanon? It isn’t clear. It may be that Israel has permanently expanded its borders into the ethnically cleansed southern Lebanon just like it has into Syria recently. This is what Katz is saying:
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/qeko153ri
It's an agreement between the US and Iran. Israel will defend its people, whatever that takes, as any right-minded nation should, no matter how dispicable the tactics used by the other side.
It's a war between Israel and the US vs Iran that was literally initiated by the US after a meeting between Trump and Netanyahu.
Also Israel is a rogue state that has been committing war crimes including genocide and is engaging in expansionist wars worse at this point than Russia's. It's in everyone's interest that Israel be either stopped or undergo a regime change that abandons Apartheid and creates a multicultural Western democracy.
> is engaging in expansionist wars worse at this point than Russia's
Russia currently controls about 46,700 square miles of Ukrainian territory.
The entire Israel + West Bank, Gaza, Golan Heights, and areas currently occupied in southern Lebanon adds up to about 11,000 square miles.
It can all fit in 4 times in just the areas Russia has taken from Ukraine.
After 400 years of Ottoman rule, we the Brits took that region because we won WWI. We gave some to different Arab groups, and some to the Israelis. The muslim religious head of Jerusalem wrote fan mail to Hitler advocating for the Final Solution. The hostility toward Jews had been whipped up for years and the general unwillingness of the neighboring regions to agree to the lines that the UK delegated to the UN is why after we left the region descended into war. The Israelis held on to their land. The Iranian mullahs came along in the 70s and jumped onto the cause because they feed on hate. My father was an advocate of the Iranian regime, because he was a vulnerable conflict survivor with deep psychological issues. But I saw what they were peddling 45 years ago and I heard what they were inculcating in him, through the mullahs that they trained and sent to the UK. They love to stress the idea of Abraham sacrificing his children. These are people that use children in war. They fire their rockets and shoot their guns where their own civilians will get hurt in the counterattack because they are just pawns to them. They sent young boys to the frontlines against the Iraqis and they use human shield tactics against the Israelis. It's a tragedy when innocents die, but against a foe that uses innocents in the propaganda war, only steely resolve and self-preservation will rid this world of the scourge that is these Iranian mullahs.
Why the fuck does the colonial power dictate who “gets” land?
The land was stolen from the local farmers and fishermen and given to Europeans.
For the same reason all land ownership across the world and across the ages and across all animal species has been determined.
So you believe might makes right?
I don’t.
The reality that a contested position is determined by whoever can assert the claim, isn't a moral choice, it's simply an observable political fact.
No it isn’t.
There are many plots of land belonging to people with limited military power.
Iceland is a pretty good example.
Palestine was stolen by Europeans with powerful backers, a statement you then agree with?
> is engaging in expansionist wars worse at this point than Russia's
You should really reevaluate the news sources you use if you think that
With nuclear questions to be resolved at a later time. Wasn't total disarmament the core, non-negoitable for this entire conflict?
The core non negotiable for the conflict was meeting a handful of Israel’s military objectives at the expense of virtually everyone else globally.
For sure, but the eventually-settled-upon rationale was some kind of nuclear deterrence. To walk away with Iran (likely) to maintain its uranium stockpile + possible toll control of the strait is such a complete and utter self-own.
I’m an Iranian in my 40s, and the regime and Western countries have been negotiating for most of my life. I remember being in high school when the first nuclear talks began, and ever since, it has been a never-ending series of talks, understandings, and plans without any real conclusion. I remember there were cases when they talked for weeks, and their main achievement was agreement on the time and place of the next negotiations. Today’s “deal” is no different. No party is releasing an official text; apparently, it’s not a real deal but a memorandum of understanding outlining a plan for further talks over the next 60 days. Another 60 days on top of the last two decades.
And all of these have only bought time and money for the regime to continue its nuclear ambitions, terrorism plans, and oppress the people of Iran, including almost daily executions of innocent protestors during the last few months as these negotiations went on.
The truth is, it won’t be possible to solve this issue with this approach. You can’t get a snake to sign a document to agree not to be poisonous anymore.
Iranian here as well. This war was a complete disaster, US bombed our kids, our homes and killed more than 3000 people.
I’ll be the first one in line to spit on IRGC. I had my cousin sent to Evin for six months after the Mahsa uprising. She was tortured and will never live a normal life again. But I’m glad IRGC defended the land and didn’t let US and Israel turn it into another Syria.
I think that internal Iranian issues should only be dealt with from within. I’m not going to celebrate the West attempting to interfere in our affairs.
Right now half the country supports the IRGC and this war increased the number of hardliners in the “Majles”. Just look at the new IRGC commanders in charge.
If the West genuinely was interested in helping the Iranian people, they would start by taking away the sanctions that our suffocating our people.
In short, I agree with your central argument, which ironically coincides with the regime’s talking points: “dialogue with the West is useless.”
Dictators are established when someone is attacking or meddling in a country, which UK and US were genuinely doing from 1950s till now in Iran.
Current government is a product of western actions in Iran.
It’s short sighted. If in 1950s they left Iran alone, the IRGC would disappear a long time ago because their strong grip would not be needed nor justified.
But every western leader wants to record a win, and constant attacks further increases the required grip of the IRGC.
> Right now half the country supports the IRGC
Where the hell did you get that number from?
The original Obama deal kept Iran isolated and their nuclear stockpile limited. It didn't do anything for the Iranian people and that's tragic but until trump it wasn't the west's problem. The decades of negotiations was to everyone's benefit (except the Iranian people)
Now it is the wests problem (with the strait) but even now no one is going to send an army to Iran.
I know my views are probably overly simplistic.
I would bet considerable sums of money that this deal is also not going to do anything for the Iranian people.
It actually does, how about not dying from US/Israeli bombs? People tend to forget there is a human cost to this and not only oil and money involved. There are 3.5k people dead in Iran many more injured. The US killed indian sailors in the last couple of days, guess the remaining ones will be happy to not live with this danger.
That's just restoring the status quo ante.
They were not dying from those bombs before the war
At the very least it should quell the markets for this week.
Markets reached ATH this month and are only a couple percent off that mark. What is there to "quell"?
5 days is forever in the history of these negotiations.
I would be shocked if it actually happens.
The Israeli will drag Trump again.
I wonder how the stock markets will react tomorrow. I know someone who turned $6k into $150k by buying options on war related news. The logic is that the markets will almost certainly go up, so bet big at a time like this.
It sounded like an easy way to lose $6k, but maybe the upside is worth the risk. I don’t have any experience to know whether this is a sufficiently good bet though.
> The logic is that the markets will almost certainly go up
The markets go up because people buy expecting that the markets will go up, which causes sellers to increase their price because they expect people will pay more because of FOMO, which people still buy because they expect the market to go up further.
The snake somehow keeps eating its tail.
Institutional investors get to trade outside of hours that most ordinary people can't; presuming that this is net positive for markets, they will already be up when the bell rings.
> maybe the upside is worth the risk
The upside is worth the risk if you can stand to lose $6k without it hurting too much. If you can't, then it isn't.
"For purposes of mine removal" -- what the hell is that line about ...
I have it on good authority that Iran doesn’t know where all the mines are buried.
I have it on good authority there are still ww1 mines in the North Sea. Mines drift. At best you know the co-ordinates of where you released them from a ship.
Yeah, the difference is these were laid months ago.
Peace - in whatever form is something the world desperately needs at this point. Having said that, I'll give it three days until Israel does some shit and undos all of this.
Reading through the proposal Iran put out, it sounds like Trump's surrendered?
1- Permanent and immediate cessation of war on all fronts, including Lebanon
- You know Israel won't let that happen
2- America's commitment not to interfere in Iran's internal affairs and to respect the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
- No regime change
3- Complete removal of the naval blockade within 30 days
- Iran gets its oil money back.
4- America's commitment to the withdrawal of its forces from around Iran
- We leave altogether
5- Reopening the Strait of Hormuz within 30 days with Iranian arrangements
- Iran gets to charge its "service" fees
6- Suspension of sanctions on the sale of oil, petrochemical products and derivatives and Iran's full access to its financial resources.
- Oil money again
7- Necessity of presenting plans for the reconstruction of Iran in the amount of at least 300 billion dollars by the US and its allies
- We rebuild freakin Iran.
FFS. I think I'm done reading before we give them American Samoa and a puppy.
> We rebuild freakin Iran.
Honestly I think that's "Trump's win", and is probably all he cares about. Now he gets to funnel all these reconstruction contracts to his buddies, prioritizing anyone who gives him a "donation".
Confirmation from Iran's Security Council.[1]
It's just a 60-day cease fire extension, according to the New York Times.
Trump posted something on Truth Social. There's no announcement on the U.S. Department of State site. That's full of a deal between the US Government and the Ultimate Fighting Championship people.
Compare with the April 8th ceasefire.[2]
Al Jazeera, which reports on this in detail because their readership is in the target area, is trying to figure it out.[3]
[1] https://www.iranintl.com/en/liveblog/202606139149
[2] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/8/us-iran-ceasefire-de...
[3] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/6/14/will-the-us-iran-de...
Well, Iran is angry: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/14/iranian-hardli...
Israel is angry: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/14/world/middleeast/israel-u...
Let's hope that means the deal will last.
Surely trump deserves the Nobel prize for this deal!
If not for this one, then surely for the 21 prior ‘imminent’ ceasefire deals or perhaps for one of the upcoming ceasefire deals.
So many deals.
This is not any better than the reply about Obama. The intention of the snark is clear, and does not contribute to useful discourse. Please don't.
It's a ridiculous situation that requires ridicule. And further I will bet you (or polymarket) that someone will nominate trump for the Nobel prize for this deal.
When you fuck up this badly, people are allowed to make fun of you.
I think they prefer their winners to not have started the action that they're claiming credit for ending...
Someone will nominate him. Qatar? UAE?
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I think the Obama prize was just a reaction to how terrible the Bush administration was, not that he actually deserved it.
Someone on HN said a long time ago that if you want to understand Obama's prize, just look at who it upsets.
Yeah, if you watched Obama’s energy he had kind of a “Thanks guys, but why?” air about him through the whole thing.
Somewhere it's written that he and his team discussed internally about refusing it, but thought that action would be considered arrogant and diplomatically bad form.
Meanwhile 17 years later...
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> Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
What are the odds of the optimal deal being reached on Trump's birthday (Eastern Time)? Who knows, maybe US stalled before, and/or gave a little extra concession to conclude today.
You are probably right it was timed deliberately this way, this is why the Iranians also didn't rush it ...
> Iran waited until the clock passed midnight local time to finalize the agreement, because it did not want the momentous occasion to coincide with President Trump’s birthday on Sunday, according to two Iranian officials who could not be identified because of the matter’s sensitivity. The seven-and-half-hour time difference allowed both Tehran and Washington to claim their preferred version of when the deal was finalized. President Trump had said it would be on Sunday, and Iran had said it would be on a later day.[0]
[0]https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/06/14/world/iran-war-trump...
Trump says "The Deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran is now complete." The deal opens the Strait of Hormuz to all, while leaving the thorniest nuclear issues for another day.
So basically the same as when the war started.
Slightly worse by the sounds of it
Same, minus the people who died.
More cash with Iran now
According to the NY times, its a 60 day ceasefire on all fronts, and a return to pre-war status on issues like the (blockade, tolls, nuclear program, sanctions) starting this coming Friday. Also on Friday, a new round of negotiations will begin to discuss these issues.
So basically, both sides agreed to go back to the pre-war status quo for 60 days while negotiations continue.
Except one thing so far, apparently Trump has agreed to unfreeze Iranian financial assets.
Remember: the reason Trump said Obama's nuclear agreement was terrible was because Obama was "paying the Iranians to not develop nuclear weapons". What Obama did, was pay them out of these frozen assets. Which trump just gave them back for free, and without a nuclear deal.
Total capitulation by America, Israel might not even be on-board with this deal, and Trump still has 5 days to chicken out or forget.
He did say unconditional surrender
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> Tehran agrees that it will neither produce nor acquire nuclear weapons.
Of course they do. They have always said they don’t want nuclear weapons while pursuing them relentlessly.
> Iran’s nuclear programme, uranium enrichment activities and mechanisms for handling its stockpile of highly enriched uranium would be negotiated within 60 days of the memorandum and addressed in a final agreement.
If that is still to be discussed, then what have they been discussing so far? That has always been the main issue.
Our own intelligence agencies said they were not making nuclear weapons.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/americas-spies-say-ira... https://www.foxnews.com/politics/us-intel-community-agreed-b...
> If that is still to be discussed, then what have they been discussing so far? That has always been the main issue.
If the agreement means Iran seriously agrees to dilute (which boils down to destroying) it's nuclear stockpile, with UN or US or ... witnesses, that's pretty damn new.
Iran hasn't agreed to that. United States agrees to allow Iran to dilute its stockpile of highly enriched uranium on Iranian soil under a future comprehensive agreement.
Jep, it's not exactly a clear agreement. I agree.
Trump released Iran's frozen assets, in return for them opening the straight and thereby dropping oil prices before the midterm elections.
Reminder, the reason Trump hated the Obama deal was because he construed it as paying Iran not to develop nuclear weapons. Obama was paying Iran with the money from Iran's frozen assets. Trump's deal gives them that money, and has no nuclear agreement.
He didn't hate the Obama deal, he hated Obama therefore everything he does has to be criticized and torn down. If that deal had Iran paying the US, Trump would have said the color of the money was no good. And his supporters would eat it up.
Rising inflation at home forced Trump's hand.
No, invading Iran without a proper plan or goal forced his hand. This was a strategic mistake from Day 1.
Trump said they would sign something today.
An hour later, now they're not signing anything until Friday.
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No, it's not a waste.
That would imply that the end result will be 0.
Nooo, it will be much worse. The end result will be a huge net negative. This administration will bring down the US a lot.
So basically the Obama agreement that Trump trashed. Only now people had to die to get to this point.
…plus iran gets $300bn in reconstruction money
Unfreezing assets was also a thing in Obama's deal
This completely ignores the shareholder value to the military industrial complex and the truth machine value of prediction markets from the not-insider traders.
Also...
The US' limitations in its ability to project power have been exposed. Having American bases in the middle east has been shown to be nothing but a liability for host countries. And Iran has proven that it can withstand anything the US is willing to throw at it, and hit back hard, over a relatively prolonged period.
And Iran has shown that its constitution is strong and power succession is effective even after a massive decapitation strike. There was seemingly zero turmoil, control appears to have been maintained without issue.
And Iran's non nuclear option of controlling the strait has been tested andd shown to be highly effective.
And Iran has gained significant operational experience with its massive stores of drones and missles.
And the US has lost multiple billion dollar intelligence installations in the region.
And Americans have been made aware of the Israel lobby like never before, and Trump is in a very difficult position heading into the midterms.
> And Iran has proven that it can withstand anything the US is willing to throw at it
Also, the idiot in the WH, single handedly turned Iran's many anti-regime citizens to pro-regime and patriotic.
This is a very good point. Not a word about protests recently.
Before the war it felt like the regime was about to collapse, just a matter of time.
> And Iran has proven that it can withstand anything the US is willing to throw at it, and hit back hard, over a relatively prolonged period.
Absolutely not. But Trump made two huge mistakes: 1) not imposing the naval blockade from the very start, 2) stopping the military offensive after only roughly a month, when about 50% of the Iranian missile stockpile was still intact. We must resume combat operations, bomb Iran until they are unable to fire back, and use their frozen funds to pay for damages to neighboring countries. It is absurd to offer Iran sanctions relief or "reparations," and makes Trump look incredibly weak.
Other things should also be done in parallel, such as actively hunting down and sinking Iran's "shadow fleet" of vessels, around the world and relentlessly until they are unable to export a single drop of oil by sea. We could also take their bridges and railroads and further deal a huge blow to trade with other nations by land. An invading force isn't needed for any of this.
> It is absurd to offer Iran sanctions relief or "reparations," and makes Trump look incredibly weak.
But hey, at least gasoline prices will go down before the midterms. That's what really matters to the American electorate, right?
(I wish I was joking.)
From who? Trump can not even get the $10B he said would go to Gaza?
idk about 300 billion, but the Gulf States have already, and rather silently, unfrozen north of 10 billion in assets (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/6/12/uae-to-unlock-froze...)
which is of course the real kicker, The Gulf states are going to pay for the adventure and deal with an emboldened Iran and their damaged economies and infrastructure. Having US bases in the region has turned from a security guarantee into a disaster, the implications of this are pretty obvious.
“US and allies” apparently
Obama's agreement didn't stop enrichment, leading to the current crisis.
You mean the crisis that was entirely manufactured, after our own intelligence agencies said Iran was not building a nuclear weapon?
It did to weapons grade. It only permitted enrichment for energy purposes. And was validated by inspections.
The current crisis is entirely because Trump trashed that agreement in the first place.
...and then you woke up and realised that Iran never allowed those inspectors to inspect the actually important facilities and started removing inspectors from the country in 2023 under Biden.
https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/pressreleases/iaea-director-...
Chronologically wrong.
During the time of JCPOA (original, between Iran and the P5+1) inspectors had access to where they wanted to go (sometimes with friction, sure) and were able to place tamper resistant / tamper revealing instrumentation, air filters, and spectrometers - effectively creating a data record that could place a stochastic cap on {enrichment level, volume}.
After Trump ripped up that agreement during his first term, withdrawing from the pact in 2018, that was no longer the case - leading to your linked 2023 statement.
The JCPOA was a huge mistake. Even assuming that it truthfully capped enrichment and prevented the development of an atomic bomb, at the same time it enriched the nation and therefore allowed Iran to finance terrorism and ballistic missiles.
> Even assuming
It did.
> at the same time it enriched the nation
It returned some of that nations own money.
> allowed Iran to finance terrorism and ballistic missiles.
Like Russia, Israel, the UsofA, North Korea, et al ?
Balance of Power is a tricky game.
My point is that we should have taken "their" money and used it against them. This is how you deal with enemies.
That's naive and simplistic. Your counterparty isn't going to agree to a deal if they get nothing in return. "Stop doing nuclear stuff or else" isn't a deal, it's a demand.
And this fiasco proves that the US can't really do enough militarily if Iran just decides they don't want to abide by a deal/demand. Sure, this war was costly and painful for Iran, but they're coming out of it with better terms than they had before the war.
and now Iran is getting fresh €250 banknotes, impressive gambit sir
Biden was elected _after_ Trump broke the deal so it's unclear why you think that tells us anything about what would have happened had the United States honored the treaty.
The crisis exists because Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons. That's the root issue.
JCPOA was never a permanent solution. Under JCPOA, Iran agreed to temporarily cap enrichment for 15 years until 2030. After which, Iran could enrich freely.
JCPOA had no extension framework, the deal could not be extended without being renegotiated. And Iranian officials refused to agree to permanent enrichment caps, they said the 15-year sunset on enrichment was a non-negotiable.
The experience of the last 10 years with these dingbats in charge is an incentive for every country to pursue their own nukes
> The crisis exists because Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons.
The US's own intelligence agencies said they weren't, though.
That's a badly misleading framing of the situation.
The U.S. intelligence community said for more than a year that Iran was weeks away from enriching uranium further to bomb grade, said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association.
"That is extremely worrisome but that is not weeks away from having a nuclear weapon and not weeks away from having a nuclear weapon that can be loaded on a nuclear missile," Kimball said.
"My understanding from non-governmental sources and the internal assessment of the (intelligence community) is that they believe it would take several months or more to fashion the highly enriched uranium bomb grade into a nuclear device, and one to two years to manufacture a small light nuclear device," Kimball said.
https://www.politifact.com/article/2025/jun/23/Tulsi-Gabbard...
So you're saying all of this shit is a because we could not renegotiate a deal... which is to end in 2030? As if there was no more time to wait?
> The crisis exists because Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons
According to whom? I know there's one country who says Iran is two weeks away from nuclear weapons, but who else?
According to Ali Motahari, a former member of the parliament of Iran. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Motahari
Former Iranian Majles member Ali Motahari said in an April 24, 2022 interview on ISCA News (Iran) that when Iran began developing its nuclear program, the goal was to build a nuclear bomb. He said that there is no need to beat around the bush, and that the bomb would have been used as a "means of intimidation" in accordance with a Quranic verse about striking "fear in the hearts of the enemies of Allah."
"When we began our nuclear activity, our goal was indeed to build a bomb,” former Iranian politician Ali Motahari told ISCA News. “There is no need to beat around the bush,” he said.
When asked if saying this publicly will negatively affect the ongoing JCPOA negotiations, Motahari answered: "Nobody notices what I am saying."
https://www.memri.org/tv/former-iranian-majles-member-motaha...
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202204245312
> a former member of the parliament of Iran
He wasn't a member at the time of those statements nor did he have any involvement in their nuclear program. That's misleading to say the least.
Ali Motahari—former member of Iran’s Parliament—clarified that the interview dates back to May 2022, when he neither held a parliamentary seat nor any official role in nuclear affairs.[0]
So besides a single guy in Iran, are there official delegations that have concluded Iran was developing nuclear weapons? The US has had two National Intelligence Estimates, which consists of all 18 agencies in the intelligence community, conclude that they were not developing nukes.
0: https://wanaen.com/trump-shares-old-ali-motahari-interview-o...
> "conclude that they were not developing nukes."
You're misreading your own sources. The 2007 NIE and Gabbard's 2025 testimony both describe a nuclear weapons program that Iran "suspended in 2003". They confirm a nuclear weapons program existed, the opposite of what you're claiming.
And you want an official source: the IAEA concluded in May 2025 that Iran ran an "undeclared structured nuclear program" until the early 2000s using undeclared material. Then it found Iran in formal non-compliance in June of last year.
"Not building a warhead today" and "never pursued weapons" are different claims, and you swapped one for the other.
https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/statements/iaea-director-gen...
I never swapped claims. We're talking about nuclear weapons and why the US started a war with Iran this year due to this supposed "crisis" (in your words) but there's no evidence that a threat is imminent. The NIEs were just one data point against your claim; the burden is still on you to show who else agrees with the assesment that this is a crisis.
> IAEA concluded in May 2025 that Iran ran an "undeclared structured nuclear program" until the early 2000s
"nuclear program" is not the same as a weapons program and the IAEA sounding alarm bells over policy violations is not a conclusion that Iran is/was on a nuclear warpath.
Name the civilian use for Iran's 440 kg of 60% enriched uranium. There isn't one. No power reactor uses it (those run on 3-5%), no research reactor needs it (~20% max), and it sits 98-99% of the way enriched weapons-grade. Iran has enough fissile material for multiple bombs with under two weeks of further enrichment. There is no civilian use for this material. Iran enriched this material, under a mountain, in violation of IAEA requirements, at a site it hid from IAEA investigators until it got caught lying, while stonewalling compliance investigators for years.
Even your own source, the 2025 Annual Threat Assessment report, states: "Iran's enriched uranium stockpile is at its highest levels and is unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons."
What's your justification for Iran producing this material, if not for a nuclear weapons program?
Did that 2025 assessment conclude that Iran was building toward a nuclear weapon, or didn't it?
The 2025 unclassified report does not assess that, but the 2024 one did. Money quote:
Iran has greatly expanded its nuclear program, reduced IAEA monitoring, and undertaken activities that better position it to produce a nuclear device, if it chooses to do so.
Also, that 2025 unclassified report was released before the June 2025 enrichment numbers I shared; these numbers would have influenced the report, and you dodged the question:
What's your justification for Iran producing 440kg of highly enriched 60% material, in secret deep under a mountain in violation of IAEA agreements, if not for a nuclear weapons program?
For unrelated reasons I personally don't believe Iran was ever pursuing a nuclear weapon, just edging enrichment for leverage.
That said, this:
has little weight given these were / are the same US intell agencies that were blindsided and caught pants down unaware and in the dark about the 1998 India / Pakistan nuclear test exchange.> MEMRI was co-founded by Israeli ex-intelligence officer Yigal Carmon and Israeli-American political scientist Meyrav Wurmser in 1998.
Well that's convenient, isn't it.
You're trying hard to discredit this, but that fails here. The interview in question was conduced by ISCA News, an Iranian state-run media agency.
It did though? Trump pulled out of the deal in his first term and then Iran enriched from 3%.
JCPOA only had temporary enrichment limits, which would end in 2030, after which Iran could enrich freely. It did not permanently stop enrichment.
If JCPOA was followed by both Iran and the US to the letter, we would face a similar crisis to the one seen today, except around 2031-2035.
Unless agreements are renegotiated and extended, of course.
What matters is ongoing engagement and monitoring, it's a far more tractable position than standoffs with zero knowledge or interaction.
The core reason those sunset dates exist is because Iranian officials stated that a sunset on enrichment limits was a non-negotiable. They would not sign a deal without them.
Claiming "agreements are renegotiated and extended" is hypothetical. What incentive does Iran have to agree to enrichment caps post-2030? Why would Iran give up its strongest negotiating card, its nuclear program?
For the same reasons it temporarily gave it up before?
Under JCPOA, Iran capped its nuclear program for 15 years in exchange for:
* Global sanctions relief
* $100-150 billion in frozen assets
* Access to the global oil market
Iran in 2030 under JCPOA already has access to all three. The US already played its best cards to get Iran to agree to JCPOA. The US has little new to offer, other than resumed sanctions.
Under a JCPOA extension, why would items like access to the global oil markets (in addition to sanctions) not be part of the negotiations?
And with JCPOA and its possible continuation, that was a joint agreement among a number of countries - in the current situation, it’s just the U.S./Israel (+ them trying to impose their will on other countries to go along with any carrots/sticks).
> The US has little new to offer, other than resumed sanctions.
Not turning the country into a parking lot is a rather generous offer.
Well yes, exactly. Would sanctions not be an incentive in 2030?
> Claiming "agreements are renegotiated and extended" is hypothetical.
What's not hypothetical is that, under the deal, they agreed to not enrich until 2030. What's not hypothetical is that Trump abandoned the deal, with nothing to replace it, allowing them to start enriching in 2017 instead.
And if you're going to claim that renegotiation is hypothetical, then you also have to agree that any other possible future outcome, including one in which Iran develops a functional nuclear weapon, is also hypothetical.
and lord knows a new deal would not be possible by that time...
Ok, so Trump gave them 13 years of enrichment that they wouldn't otherwise have had.
And those 13 years would have been plenty of time to extend or renegotiate that agreement.
We had a once in a lifetime opportunity to completely destroy the theocratic regime and we did not finish the job. This "deal" (or what transpired of it) is pathetic and will only allow the mullahs to rearm and come back stronger in the future. We will live to regret not resuming combat operations and weakening the regime until it isn't a threat to anyone.
That would require an invading force. Not worth it when we could keep Iran isolated and under sanctions and under nuclear inspections by doing nothing.
They're pretty good at projecting power in the region though.
It is one thing to destroy the regime, it is another thing to build something stable which isn’t going to spread terrorism.
Being attacked strengthens a nations unity, strengthens regimes, and eliminates room for dissent - did you miss 9/11? Oct 7th? Pearl harbour? The blitz?
It's the last bump before I liquidate all my stocks. I predict that the crash will come at the end or the beginning of the next president which is likely democrat.
Not that it's democrat's fault but democrat is more disciplined
I have some thoughts on that. It’s possible that the current administration’s lack of oversight has artificially propped up the stock market. If the next president decides to return to a more traditional rules based structure, the market will probably react very poorly. US debt is also getting more expensive and interest is ballooning.
Making the country less desirable to the most skilled immigrants and eroding the capabilities of the strongest research universities will also mean there is probably hell to pay in the medium term.
The swing of the market based on the president's crazy tweets is just insane. This cannot go on for much longer. I will be parking my money at a safer place
Time in the market beats timing the market, bears have predicted (large number) out of the last (smaller number) recessions, etc. None of this is novel. "Predicting" a stock crash due to political reasons is effectively just a fancy restatement of anti-those-politics views; and it isn't substantive, especially when the prediction comes with a years-long window.
You need to caveat this with "... if you want to be lazy and ignorant of your port." Otherwise there is so, so much evidence that it is flat wrong.
Yeah, meanwhile all the wealthy people actively manage their port with an insane amount of efforts. They would compensate hedge fund manager with insane amount of money.
Then, they turn around and tell average people to forget about the investment. Just park your money in the index fund over the long run. I mean, if you are either stupid or don't have time, then yeah please only do index fund.
"But my 401k advisor showed me a chart!"
That's like 2.5 years from now--you don't think crash will happen before then?
I think it may happen before then. That's why I'm thinking of liquidating it soon-ish. Trump is doing too much crazy things. He cannot prop up the market for that long.
I plan to put most of the money in US t-bill (4 week) to earn 3% for now.
Check out spring of 2020. Rate cuts and QE if he can get control of the Fed.
And what are you going to do with that money?
US t-bill (4w) until the market crashes. For 401K, I'll just move it to money market/bond.
We don't really need to maximize the profits all the time. Not losing the money is good too.
Well Obama gave $3 billion dollars in cash to Iran. Atleast he didn't do that, right? RIGHT???
Looks like 25 billion this time around.
> The US and its allies delivering reconstruction plans for Iran worth at least $300bn
It will be more.
They will never lear...
I don’t know how this is worse for the US or the World. Iran’s leadership and military was decapitated. It’s in the best interest of US, Europe and Israel and the Middle East. The nuclear program had a huge setback.
What are the counter arguments to these facts if we really end up in peace with Iran along with the bad actors gone too?
Very little has changed with the regime. The next in line stepped up, and it seems like the future will be business as usual.
The nuclear bogeyman is the wrong thing to focus on. Sure, we don't want Iran to have nuclear weapons, but they have a lot of other power in the region, and we've only confirmed and entrenched that power.
Yes, removing leadership is very important. It's why the US does it every 4 to 8 years. The Iranians aren't gone just because they lost a leader. If anything they proved resilient.
The biggest problems with all of this seem to be the knock-on effects, as well as the lead-up. Does this new deal actually do more than Obama's? Doubtful. Obama's didn't come with a girls' school blown to bits or a world leader assassinated.
Everything around the politics of the attack looks amateurish. Calling on Europe to attack Iran even though no deal is in place with them to do so. Not stopping Iranian strikes throughout the middle east. Not keeping Israel in line. The war has been dragging on for months, but "it'll end this week." No, this week. "Very close this week." "Very close this week."
Then there's the issue of shooting down cheap drones with expensive equipment. Why in the name of the Lord is it that Ukraine has been bombed by Shaheds for years and defended against them using NATO and US weapons, but operators of US equipment in the Middle East had nothing to show for it? Did the US not have direct access to how the Ukrainians were using their equipment in a war characterized by the use of drones and AI to an extent never before seen? Did the US decide to not look into that for years, or simply let it slide knowing Iran would bomb its neighbors? Why was it that Zelenskyy had to go to the Middle East to make sure they used American weapons correctly? It seems to me lately that every country that can produce a meaningful amount of oil has been directly or indirectly affected by American aggression, and one has to wonder why you'd do something so blatant in slow motion.
The president/head of the civilian government in Iran was ousted, probably by the IRGC. The IRGC took control of the mullahs a week after the war started. They already had power over them, but the fact us that without the war, the supreme guide election would have been a difficult power struggle with political concessions. It wasn't thanks to Trump, reinforcing the IRGC control of Iran's religious life.
The Iranian regime will be more repressive and more extreme.
The only good point about that is that it makes the regime weaker to domestic insurrections.
The bad actors were killed, and the children of the bad actors took over. Same regime, now more firmly in control.
While before, Iran's assets worldwide were frozen, they're now receiving back $25 billion of it. Also, the sanctions preventing them from selling their oil are lifted, so they now have oil revenue to expect.
Additionally, the US will pay $300 billion to "reconstruct" Iran.
Lastly, Iran has proved that it has de facto control of the Strait of Hormuz and the mightiest military in the world cannot prevent or stop it. Going forward, Iran will receives fees to allow transit of the strait.
How can you possibly think this isn't worse for the US and the world than the previous status quo?
Are the bad actors gone?
Bad actors gone? I see Trump and Israel still around.
I don’t think they are the bad actors.
if the strait actually reopens and Iran actually ships the enriched uranium out of the country this is a reasonable outcome imo. My concern centers on the fact that neither of these two outcomes are guaranteed by a long shot at this point.
Iran just confirmed the MOU.
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