Thanks heavens. The bombs, missiles, planes and guns of every size, shape and lethality have gone silent in the middle east. What could have imminently and rapidly mushroomed into a full bore Demolition Derby among the Persian Gulf oilfields, petroleum and LNG processing plants, helium and sulfur extraction operations, loading terminals, desalinization facilities and the vast range of civilian infrastructure which support them has thus been (temporarily) averted.
Indeed, had the 76-day shutdown of the world’s energy and commodities mother lode been prolonged much longer it would have also brought unspeakable worldwide economic disruption and carnage. So you can at least give the Donald this much: When push came-to-shove, he blinked. And just in the nick of time, as the global oil stocks graph below strongly suggests.
Currently, stocks are at a record low of 76 days of worldwide use. That’s damn near the bottom of the barrel – the point where working inventories give way to disruption and breakdown of the intricate and opaque supply chains through which 108 mb/d of crude oil, refined products, petro-chemical feedstock, LPGs and commodity by-products like sulfur, helium, needle coke and countless more pass through the arteries of global commerce.
As usual, however, the Donald has seen fit – obviously in conjunction with the Roman-style “games” put on for his 80th birthday – to triumphantly describe Sunday’s announcement as the equivalent of “peace in our time”. But it is no such thing. It’s more the opposite – a google calendar invite to meet and attempt yet again to negotiate the long-standing issues that stood on February 27th.
Well, at least some of them. And the “some” part is crucial to grasping the absolute insanity of the February 28 military attack on Iran in the first place.
Self-evidently, the reason for the attack is not that Iran was days, weeks or months away from a nuke: Even the Donald’s own former DNI, Tulsi Gabbard, had recently affirmed in Congressional testimony that the long-standing assessment of the US intelligence agencies that Iran had ceased all research and activities designed to weaponize HEUs was still the case, and with a high degree of confidence.
Likewise, the January 2026 street uprisings throughout Iran, which had been the catalyst for war that Netanyahu had peddled to the SUCKER he finally found in the Oval Office, has long since become a moot point. Not only has no uprising occurred upon the Donald’s explicit invitation of February 28th, but the “deal” actually says the opposite.
For instance, here is the predicate for war offered by Trump on February 28th:
“Finally, to the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand… When we are finished, take over your government… No president was willing to do what I am willing to do tonight.
America is backing you with overwhelming strength and devastating force. Now is the time to seize control of your destiny and to unleash the prosperous and glorious future that is close within your reach.”
If that wasn’t a clarion call to regime change, the word has no meaning. Accordingly, Item #3 of the MOU sticks out like a sore thumb. Contrary to the promised liberation from the tyranny of the mullahs, Iranian dissidents and patriots are self-evidently scheduled for the George HW Bush treatment.
That is to say, for complete and total abandonment similar to that which was notoriously accorded to the Iraqi Shiite uprising at the end of the first Gulf War. After being spurred into action by CIA operatives and Voice of America propaganda, the Iraqi Shiites were abandoned to be brutally liquidated by a vengeful Saddam – even as Washington conveniently became amnesiac about the guns and money it had promised to provide.
Here again, therefore, there will be no further Washington instigated regime change activities but, instead, full respect for Iran’s own sovereignty and benighted form of internal governance. To be sure, that is a good thing: Washington should never ever pretend to be the hall monitor for the 193 sovereign states of the planet in the first place.
Still, what the hell was the reason for going to war on February 28th when there was no bomb and, self-evidently, no prospect of a regime change uprising, as MOU item #3 makes clear as a bell?
Then again, this so-called betrayal actually represents a silver lining. Owing to his stumbling, bumbling handling of the entire matter, the Donald by inadvertence or otherwise has put the CIA, NED, the USIA and the rest of the Deep State operations out of business when it comes to the Regime Change file in Iran. And that’s hopefully a strong precedent for the future.
3. The US commitment to non-interference in Iran’s internal affairs and respect for the sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Next we needs go back to the reasons why the Donald shit-canned the JCPOA way back in April 2018 at the instigation of the neocon/Bibi Fifth Column in Washington. One of the latter’s red hot claims was that the JCPOA did nothing about the alleged Iranian network of proxies and terrorist states around the middle east, especially Hezbollah, the Houthis and the former regime of Assad in Syria.
You might well have expected, therefore, that high on the list of items that the parties would be obligated to discuss and resolve pursuant to the Meeting Invite would be the matter of Iran reining in its purportedly terrorist allies.
Alas, we appear to have another case of mistaken identities. The only “allies” tasked with new obligations by the MOU are not the axis of resistance associates of Iran, but the Gulf States allies of the US!
That’s right. The former are apparently to be assessed upwards of $300 billion to rebuild the massive damage caused by US/ Israeli missiles and bombs on the Iranian side of the Persian Gulf.
#7: The necessity for the US and its allies to present reconstruction plans for Iran amounting to at least $300 billion.
Again, this item constitutes yet another silver lining – even if it is ass-backwards with respect to the ostensible reasons for the war in the first place. To wit, the Bibi/Donnie War was actually such a severe existential threat to the economic prosperity of the Sunni states ringing the Persian Gulf that they have actually agreed to hoover-up $300 billion to get the Donald to call off the dogs of war in their own backyard.
Alas, awhile back Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) was understandably vexed by the Donald’s boast about the basis on which his principle Gulf state ally was cooperating. But now, it appears, he is expected to plant a great big wet one upon the Donald ample posterior in the form of diverting the massive funding needed for MBS’ grand ambition for Vision 2030 for Saudi Arabia into what VP Vance is already fatuously describing as “investment” in his rival across the Gulf.
“He [MBS] didn’t think this was going to happen… he didn’t think he’d be kissing my ass… He really didn’t. He thought he’d be just another American president that was a loser… but now he has to be nice to me.”
To be sure, the Wall Street pea-shuffler pretending to be the US Secretary of the Treasury will likely come up with some financial engineering scheme to sweeten the financial castor oil being shoved down the throats of the Washington’s once and former Persian Gulf allies. That is, some abuse of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation’s guarantee authority designed to hold these “allies” harmless for losses.
The point is, the Donald backed himself into the Mother of all Corners. So he is now being forced to swallow an inverted Versailles treaty obligation: To wit, he claims to have won the stupidest war every waged by Washington – and there is plenty of competition for that honor – but will now be paying massive reparations to the loser!
There is not a snowball’s chance in the hot place, of course, that he could ever get Iranian Reparations payments funded on Capitol Hill. So what is being cooked up at this very moment is some cockamamie “Persian Gulf Investment Authority” that will be fronted by the Persian Gulf allies, but, as usual, ultimately down deep in the plumbing there will be recourse to the hard-pressed taxpayers of Flyover America.
Then again, not a word is said in the MOU about the other Bibi Bugaboo that became a talking point against the JCPOA. Back in 2015 when Bibi came to the US Congress and denounced the agreement, among many complaints was his instance that the deal failed because it did not eliminate Iran’s missiles.
Well, for crying out loud. That was was risibly rich because Israel had upwards of 100 nukes – none of which had ever been declared, inspected by the IAEA or sanctioned by the UN or any other body. Yet Iran was now officially giving up any prospect of having even one bomb for deterrence purposes – even as the neocon/Bibi Fifth Column demanded that it strip itself of missile defenses, as well, thereby even further exposing itself to the kind intentions of Bibi Netanyahu, who had made a 30 year career in Israeli politics centered on demonizing the “far enemy” in Tehran.
So rather than finally stripping Iran of even its missile defense—another ostensible aim of the war – the MOU is completely silent.
Of course, the deal does include an Iranian pledge not to seek a nuclear bomb – but that surely gives gilding the lily a wholly new definition.
Iran was already committed to “no nukes” as a signatory of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty; had re-committed to that status in the 2015 JCPOA; and has maintained an internal policy of not seeking nuclear weapons since at least 2003. The latter, in fact, was confirmed in the 2007 NIE and reinforced by the 2015 IAEA findings in conjunction with the implementation of the JCPOA and subsequent US intelligence agency findings.
So what the MOU does, at the end of the day, is essentially establish at 60 day cease fire window in which an attempt is to be made to put the Humpty-Dumpty of the JCPOA back together again. In Part 2 we will amplify why the prospects of success on that front lie somewhere between slim and none.
But here it is will to consider what the JCPOA actually did and why the Donald’s reckless shit-canning of the deal in May 2018 probably was one of the greatest mistakes of American foreign policy in the entire history of the nation.
So to begin, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), finalized on July 14, 2015, represented one of the most technically detailed and intrusive non-proliferation agreements in history. Negotiated between Iran and the P5+1 (United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, China, and Germany, plus the European Union), it aimed to sharply extend the theoretical breakout time to a nuclear weapon – well beyond the physics and manufacturing hurdles that existed in their own right.
The deal achieved this through layered restrictions on enrichment capacity, elimination of the plutonium pathway entirely, and an unprecedented verification regime.
Needless to say, the negotiations were protracted. Secret U.S.-Iran talks began in 2013 in Oman, followed by the interim Joint Plan of Action in November 2013. Intensive multilateral negotiations produced a framework in April 2015 and the final 159-page agreement (including five detailed annexes and appendices) on July 14, 2015.
Thus, from the ramp-up of serious talks to finalization, the process spanned roughly 18 to 22 months of complex bargaining over technical, legal, and political details. The document itself is exceptionally long for an international accord – often described as the longest multilateral agreement since World War II – because its annexes contain highly specific implementation schedules, technical specifications, monitoring protocols, and dispute-resolution mechanisms.
Enrichment Capacity Reductions: The JCPOA imposed strict, time-bound limits on Iran’s uranium enrichment program to prevent rapid accumulation of weapons-usable material. To this end, Iran was required to reduce its operating centrifuges dramatically. At Natanz, it could operate no more than 5,060 first-generation IR-1 centrifuges in 30 cascades for the first 10 years.
The total number of installed old and slow first generation IR-1 machines was capped at 6,104 (including those at Fordow). All excess centrifuges – more than 13,000 – had to be dismantled and placed under continuous IAEA monitoring in storage.
Iran was also prohibited from producing additional IR-1 centrifuges for 10 years and from installing or testing any advanced centrifuges at all (IR-2m, IR-4, IR-6, IR-8) that would increase enrichment capacity beyond specified limits during the early years.
Enrichment level and location: For 15 years, uranium enrichment was capped at 3.67 percent U-235 (low-enriched uranium suitable for civilian power reactors but far below weapons-grade approximately 90 percent). Enrichment activities were confined exclusively to the Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant.
By contrast, the Fordow facility was converted into a nuclear, physics, and technology research center with no uranium enrichment permitted for 15 years; only 1,044 IR-1 centrifuges could remain installed there, mostly for stable isotope production in cooperation with Russia, and most cascades stayed idle.
These measures collectively slashed Iran’s enrichment capacity by roughly two-thirds and prevented rapid scaling with more efficient advanced machines.
Elimination of the Plutonium Route: A major achievement of the JCPOA was closing Iran’s potential plutonium pathway to a bomb. The Arak heavy-water research reactor (IR-40) was originally designed to produce significant quantities of weapons-grade plutonium in its spent fuel.
Under the JCPOA, however, the original reactor core was removed and rendered inoperable (filled with concrete). Iran agreed to redesign and rebuild the reactor with international assistance (primarily from China and others) so that it would produce far less plutonium – comparable to a modern light-water research reactor. All spent fuel from Arak had to be shipped out of Iran for the reactor’s lifetime.
Iran also committed not to build any new heavy-water reactors or a reprocessing facility capable of separating plutonium for at least 15 years. These steps effectively eliminated Arak as a viable source of weapons-usable plutonium.
Inspection and Surveillance Regime: The JCPOA established the most robust IAEA verification system ever applied to a state with an advanced nuclear program. Key elements included implementation of Iran’s Additional Protocol to its safeguards agreement, allowing broader access and information.
There was continuous IAEA monitoring at declared nuclear sites (Natanz, Fordow, Arak, Esfahan, etc.), including real-time camera surveillance, seals, and sensors on centrifuges, uranium flows, and storage. Daily IAEA access upon request to enrichment facilities was provided, along with monitoring of centrifuge production, assembly, and storage facilities.
A mechanism also existed for IAEA access to undeclared sites suspected of nuclear-related activities. If Iran objected, a 24-day process involving the Joint Commission could compel access. Verification of uranium mines, mills, and ore concentrate production was included, as well as long-term presence of IAEA inspectors and enhanced reporting requirements.
In all, the JCPOA regime provided “anytime, anywhere access” in practice for most practical purposes and created multiple layers of detection for covert activities
IAEA-Verified Compliance: On Implementation Day (January 16, 2016), the IAEA certified that Iran had completed all required initial steps. Crucially, Iran had reduced its stockpile of enriched uranium from roughly 7,000 to 10,000 kg (various enrichment levels) to under 300 kg of uranium enriched to no more than 3.67 percent – a reduction of well over 90 percent.
It also converted or shipped out nearly all of its stockpile of 20 percent enriched uranium (previously about 400 kilograms, used for medical isotope production in the Tehran Research Reactor),while a small remainder was fabricated into fuel or diluted.
As indicated, the IAEA also confirmed that Iran disabled the core at Fordow and removed associated infrastructure, and disabled the Arak reactor core and had begin redesign work. It also confirmed that Iran had dismantled and stored excess centrifuges under IAEA seal. Subsequent IAEA quarterly reports (2016 through early 2018) repeatedly confirmed Iran’s compliance with all of these nuclear-related commitments.
As it happened, Iran enriched uranium stockpile remained well below the 300 kg cap, and that material that was enriched stayed at or below 3.67 percent. No prohibited activities were detected at declared sites. The IAEA also verified the physical removal and disabling of key equipment at Fordow and Arak.
In short, the JCPOA’s intricate provisions – centrifuge caps and modernization bans, enrichment-level and location restrictions, plutonium pathway elimination via Arak redesign, and an exceptionally intrusive IAEA verification system – created multiple overlapping barriers. Even a modern day Houdini could not have escaped its barriers to a nuke, which the Iranians weren’t pursuing in any event.
At the end of the day, the whole case against the JCPOA was a crock – another Big Lie by Netanyahu that the Donald embraced lock, stock and barrel. And now he’s trying to put it back together under circumstances that are not remotely suitable for purpose, as we will essay in Part 2.
David Stockman was a two-term Congressman from Michigan. He was also the Director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Ronald Reagan. After leaving the White House, Stockman had a 20-year career on Wall Street. He’s the author of three books, The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed, The Great Deformation: The Corruption of Capitalism in America, TRUMPED! A Nation on the Brink of Ruin… And How to Bring It Back, and the recently released Great Money Bubble: Protect Yourself From The Coming Inflation Storm. He also is founder of David Stockman’s Contra Corner and David Stockman’s Bubble Finance Trader.
