U.S., Iran Indicate Deal Is Emerging While Disputing Reported Terms

Despite initially conflicting claims emerging from the White House and Iranian state media about the contents and timing of a memorandum of understanding between the parties, there were indications on Friday that the gaps between the two sides could be closing.

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“It seems that after repeated signs of an imminent deal for weeks now, a deal will be clear once U.S. and Iranian officials actually publicly agree to the same agreement,” Ari Cicurel, associate director of foreign policy at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, told Jewish Insider. “Until then, it’s not clear that they actually have a deal yet.”

Cicurel noted, however, that the latest reports of an accord appear different from previous iterations throughout the conflict. He said he has seen “reports of [U.S. Air Force] aircraft heading to Europe,” which “could be a sign this is further down the road than previous efforts might have been.”

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“The claims that Iran made, if they’re anywhere near true, would be a disastrous agreement that would be rewarding Iranian aggression, providing it funds to further enable its aggression and rebuild its arsenal,” Cicurel said similarly. “The same leadership, the same regime that has been in charge of the proxy agents and conducted aggression against the United States and its partners remains in power.”

However, Cicurel noted that he also holds major concerns regarding the framework being presented by the White House — most notably, that negotiators have failed to address Iran’s missile capabilities.

“My main concern with the White House agreement is that with this proposal, and over the last few weeks, the discussion of Iran’s missile capabilities has disappeared from the conversation, which was a major mistake of the JCPOA and a major mistake of previous agreements,” Cicurel said. “Any agreement that doesn’t include that would enable Iran to take the lessons it’s learned from the current war — that it doesn’t need a lot of missiles, it doesn’t need a lot of drones to exert aggression on the Gulf — and leave a potentially dangerous situation over the long term, in the future.”

Cicurel also took issue with the White House’s indication that the MOU would launch another 60-day ceasefire, warning that the time would allow Iran to delay a durable, long-term settlement and gain leverage. He also argued that the U.S. should not release Iranian assets.

“I don’t think the United States should be unfreezing assets rewarding Iran for for its aggression and allow Iran to leverage its power projection over the Strait of Hormuz to extract financial gains that would enable it to rebuild itself to reassert more of that power projection over the Strait of Hormuz and further attack targets throughout the Middle East,” he said. 

Read the original article in Jewish Insider.