Pakistan’s prime minister has hailed the “peaceful resolution” of the conflict between the US and Iran, while congratulating the leadership of both countries for signing an agreement that he claimed would immediately reopen of the strait of Hormuz.
But amid the celebrations from Shehbaz Sharif – who has served as mediator for the deal – the release of the memorandum of understanding (MOU) that gets the ball rolling on the next 60 days of negotiations between Iran and the US, has proven more divisive, eliciting a mixture of outrage, bewilderment, and relief.
In France, the leaders of the G7 countries welcomed the deal, calling it a “historic opportunity to prevent Iran from acquiring any nuclear weapon.”
European leaders have largely been sidelined from the negotiations, but expressed relief that the strait of Hormuz would reopen, allowing the flow of oil to resume. Emmanuel Macron said it would put a stop to a “situation of great instability that had terrible consequences for our economies”.
In Israel, however, the agreement has been greeted with less optimism.
Mark Regev, a former senior adviser to prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, questioned how seriously Iran would approach negotiations over its nuclear program, now that America has removed the economic and military “pressure”.
Under the terms of the MOU, Iran will reopen the strait of Hormuz, and in return receive waivers for US sanctions on crude oil exports, petroleum products and associated banking services. They will then enter into negotiations over the fate of their nuclear program and stock of highly enriched uranium.
“The straits are open and the Iranians can start exporting their oil, and therefore they get money coming in, you’ve taken away the economic pressure,” said Regev, adding “maybe Trump will get a great deal … but at the moment I don’t see that. I see America having given Iran’s regime a return to life.”
Regev’s views were reflected across Israel.
Yair Lapid, the leader of Israel’s opposition, said on Tuesday, “Netanyahu promised us a historic victory – and we got a crisis with the Americans, Hormuz open to the Iranians, money for the Revolutionary Guards, ballistic missiles aimed at Israel, and Israel waiting in the corridor like a scolded child.”
With Israel set to hold elections before October, Lapid and his coalition partner Naftali Bennet, are seeking to capitalise on the anger brewing in Israel over the agreement between the US and Iran.
Trump, who has previously enjoyed high approval among Israelis, is facing widespread criticism in local media. David Horovitz, the founding editor of the Times of Israel, wrote on Wednesday that the US-Israel war on Iran was lost due to “US presidential weakness”, among other issues.
“It will come back to bite America. It leaves Israel more vulnerable than before the war began, with a new US-Iran ceasefire agreement that aims to deny Israel the freedom to protect and defend itself,” he wrote.
Netanyahu’s Likud party, apparently aware of the cooling views on the US president, has reportedly scrapped plans to highlight the prime minister’s close ties with Trump in its upcoming election campaign.
Not all voices were speaking in opposition to the agreement though; Danny Citrinowicz, a former head of the Iran branch of Israeli military intelligence, said the deal showed reality had “finally returned to US policy on Iran”.
“Before events spiraled completely out of control, the US administration stepped back from maximalist objectives and returned to a more measured and realistic approach,” Citrinowicz wrote on Wednesday.
Those same splits in opinion were reflected in the US.
The Republican senator Lindsey Graham, a key Trump ally, appeared to soften his view of the MOU after a “very lengthy and productive” conversation with the US special envoy Steve Witkoff.
“After this discussion, it is my opinion that signing the MOU will be beneficial to the United States, in as much as the strait of Hormuz will begin to open, and the hostilities with Iran will stop,” Graham wrote on social media.
“Whether or not the United States can reach an acceptable, verifiable deal with Iran regarding its nuclear program and other issues is yet to be determined, but I see little downside to trying.”
A handful of other Senate Republicans were more critical in their views. Bill Cassidy, who Trump failed to back in a tightly fought primary last month, said “Iran’s nuclear ambitions were not curbed, and they have learned that threatening the strait of Hormuz works and will undoubtedly leverage it in the future.”
Senator Ted Cruz, who has backed the war, said the president was getting “very poor advice when it comes to this deal”.
Susan Rice, a former official in the Obama and Biden administrations was more blunt in her assessment, calling it “the biggest national security blunder in decades”, while Democratic Senator Adam Schiff said it was “hard to imagine a more thorough capitulation.”
“Iran gets sanctions relief, the release of frozen funds, the ability to export oil, and a $300 billion reconstruction fund. The U.S. gets a reiteration of the vague promise Iran won’t develop a nuke.”
Trump himself hailed the agreement as a “major win” for the United States, while Iran’s chief negotiator, Mohammad Ghalibaf called it “a record of US failure”. Trump signed the agreement on Wednesday and soon after, Iran announced that its president, Masoud Pezeshkian, has also signed it in Tehran.
Trump signed during a dinner with Macron at the palace of Versailles, the site of the 1919 agreement which formally ended the conflict between Germany and allied powers after the first world war. The outcomes of that agreement were short lived, and Europe was again consumed by war just 20 years after it was signed.
