The Insight: Both Sides Claim Victory in Iran

The US and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on Thursday that will end the fighting between the two countries, reopen the Strait of Hormuz for commercial shipping, unfreeze Iranian assets, and lift sanctions on the Islamic Republic. Key points regarding Iran's nuclear program will be negotiated over the next 60 days.

The Insight provides you the full picture of facts and viewpoints on a top issue for Americans each week, powered by your questions and balanced answers from our multipartisan news team.

The Questions

Both the U.S. and Iran are currently claiming victory with the new memorandum of understanding. How is that measured?

While “victory” and “defeat” are difficult to measure and subject to some degree of subjectivity in any war – for instance, government officials in Iran, Israel, and the US have all expressed discontent at the prospect of the current peace deal – both the Iranian and US governments have tried to sell the war as a victory to their respective populations for political purposes.

For the US, Americans have grown unhappy with rising gas prices. While the average American probably doesn’t actually think there is imminent danger that Iran is going to bomb the US, Iran has long been marketed by politicians and media commentators as a threat to the broader Middle East and Western world if it were to acquire nuclear weapons. Therefore, if shipping in the Strait of Hormuz can resume, and Israel or other American allies don’t sustain massive casualty counts from Iranian strikes, President Trump can say American objectives have been achieved, pending the upcoming nuclear negotiations.

Notably absent from a lot of American media dialogue has been the casualty count. As of Tuesday, the official US military casualty number stood at 413.

For Iran, the regime has withstood years of sanctions and months of American and Israeli military and intelligence operations against it. It is ultimately reopening the Strait of Hormuz on its own terms – Trump’s military efforts to guide ships through it don’t appear to have been sustainable – and will head into nuclear negotiations in the coming months.

In the MOU, Iran has agreed to “not procure or develop nuclear weapons” and to “discuss the issue of enrichment and other mutually agreed matters related to the Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear needs.”

An analysis from CNN (Lean Left) said, “Trump will argue this pledge is a win since Iran is agreeing it will never have a nuclear weapon. Iran will argue that it already made this pledge when it signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. But details of the nuclear issue — and Iran’s ability to pursue nuclear power — remain unresolved in this agreement.”

Only time will tell whether Iran will move back towards acceptable international norms, or will remain on the threshold of a nuclear breakout.

Read more from AllSides: The Geopolitical Consequences of the Iran War

Was US military action in Iran "worth it"?

Elliott Abrams, writing opinion for The Free Press (Lean Right bias) said “Whether the conflict with Iran has been worth it depends on the terms of the deal ending it, and Trump’s willingness to enforce them,” adding that “Right now, both are very unclear.”

According to Abrams, “the president can easily throw away” the “serious damage to the Iranian economy and and military machine” if “he enriches the regime by unfreezing tens of billions of dollars and lifting all sanctions–including those tied to human rights and terrorism; if he allows the regime to control the Strait of Hormuz by exacting tolls, however they are disguised; and if the deal includes Lebanon, in ways that legitimize Iran’s domination of Lebanon via Hezbollah while the United States tries to constrain Israel’s struggle against Hezbollah.”

“The Islamic Republic has proved itself unreformable,” Abrams asserts, and “The only long-term solution to its repression and aggression is regime change.”

Sohrab Ahmari, writing in the same Free Press article as Abrams, said that “While the precise terms of the final settlement are unclear, the list of U.S. setbacks is already long.” These setbacks, according to Ahmari include “a hardened Iranian regime, newly conscious of a potency that was formerly only latent (the power to squeeze a global energy choke point); battered U.S. bases in the Persian Gulf region; strained Arab alliances; a big payday for the Mullahs; diminished prestige for Uncle Sam.”

Ahmari alluded to a “silver lining,” however, saying that “This turn of events will accelerate America’s departure from a region of secondary importance (at best) to the world’s No. 1 energy exporter, allowing Washington to focus on domestic reconsolidation and more critical foreign theaters, most notably the Pacific.” It also may lead to “the next generation of American security professionals, on the left and the right,” to be “embittered about what they see as Benjamin Netanyahu’s overreach, about the excessive demands of a small client that too often forgets ‘who’s the f***ing superpower here.’”

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney called the agreement between the US and Iran a “game changer,” which makes the conflict “worth it.” Carney said that the deal “sets the groundwork to ensure Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapon. It sets the groundwork for a reintegration over time of the economies in the region. It sets the groundwork for a solution in Lebanon,” adding “I have to say, it’s exceeded my expectations.”

Some have also said that the deal with Iran looks very similar to the one struck by former President Barack Obama, which similarly entailed Iran trading away its nuclear capabilities in exchange for integration into the world economy. Others point out how the original deal included a controversial monitoring protocol, which required inspectors to provide days or weeks of warning of possible violations. Critics argued it would allow Iran to cover up violations. Supporters, including some nuclear scientists, said that creating highly enriched uranium leaves too many signs, and they would know of violations even if things were moved.

However, according to Matthew Petti, writing opinion for Reason (Center), the “important difference” between the two deals is that “Obama’s outreach was meant to avoid the threat of war, while Trump’s diplomacy is meant to get out of a war.”