Iran International
Less than three weeks after Washington and Tehran began implementing a 60-day memorandum, the ceasefire is broken, commercial ships have again come under attack in the Strait of Hormuz, and US forces have struck Iran. Yet the two sides are still talking.
President Donald Trump declared the ceasefire over after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fired on three merchant vessels, but said negotiations would continue because Iran “wants to make a deal so badly.”
The contradiction suggests the memorandum may be doing something narrower than ending the conflict. It has failed to prevent renewed violence, but may still provide a structure through which Washington and Tehran can contain escalation, preserve communication and negotiate between military exchanges.
The latest crisis has already damaged one of the memorandum’s main objectives: restoring safe commercial passage through the Strait of Hormuz while the two sides pursued a broader agreement over Iran’s nuclear program and other disputes.
The question is no longer simply whether the ceasefire survived. It is whether the memorandum was ever a peace agreement, or a system for managing an unfinished war.
Experts who spoke to Iran International’s Eye for Iran podcast differed over whether the arrangement remains viable, but broadly agreed that both Washington and Tehran still have reasons to prevent the confrontation from returning to full-scale war.
Jonatan Sayeh, a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said Tehran may have calculated that it could test US limits, absorb a contained response and retain many of the economic benefits it secured under the agreement.
“That to them was a gamble that was kind of worth it,” Sayeh said.
From the IRGC’s perspective, the outcome may still fall short of its worst-case scenario. Iran was struck, but the broader maritime blockade has not been fully restored, Tehran can continue selling oil to China, and the confrontation did not immediately return to all-out war.
Sayeh also questioned claims that Iran’s civilian government had simply lost control of the Guards.
Tehran may instead be using a new version of its longstanding “good cop, bad cop” strategy, he said, with civilian officials seeking concessions while presenting the IRGC as an independent force they cannot fully restrain.
Historian and Atlantic contributing writer Arash Azizi said the attacks had not necessarily destroyed the broader framework.
“I certainly don’t think it was doomed to fail,” Azizi said. “And I don’t, in fact, think it has failed actually yet.”
Neither Washington nor Tehran appears eager to resume full-scale war, he said. That shared interest could preserve negotiations even after the immediate ceasefire collapsed.
Azizi said hardline pressure on President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi may also help explain the attacks. Factions opposed to the agreement could fear that 60 days of normal traffic through Hormuz would make it harder for Iran to reassert control of the waterway as a source of leverage.
Fatima Al-Asrar, a senior policy analyst at Ideology Machine, argued that the memorandum’s ambiguity may have benefited the IRGC from the outset.
She called it a “memorandum of undoing,” saying it postponed or weakened earlier US demands concerning Iran’s nuclear program, armed allies and regional conduct.
“The MoU gives you this kind of maybe false sense of progress, and I think it’s performative mostly,” Al-Asrar said. “It’s a truce, and that’s great, but it’s driven by short-term political wins.”
Rather than removing Iran’s capacity to threaten shipping, she said, the arrangement may have allowed Tehran to retain what amounts to a geopolitical switch.
Iran can reduce tensions when it seeks sanctions relief, oil revenue or diplomatic concessions, then disrupt the strait again when it wants greater leverage.
The consequences extend far beyond Washington and Tehran. Disruption in Hormuz raises shipping and energy costs and can affect fertilizer supplies and food prices across Asia and other import-dependent regions.
Itai Reuveni, director of communications at NGO Monitor, described the memorandum as a deliberately flexible answer to the immediate needs of all sides.
Iran wanted to stop US and Israeli strikes before they threatened the survival of the Islamic Republic. Washington wanted to avoid another prolonged Middle Eastern war. Israel had demonstrated its ability to strike Iran but also faced the costs and risks of a sustained campaign.
The agreement reduced the intensity of the war without settling the disputes that caused it.
“It seems to me that the line is always being pushed,” Reuveni said.
The United States, Israel and Iran may now be entering a prolonged cycle in which each side tests how far it can go without triggering another major war.
That may explain why military action and diplomacy are continuing at the same time.
The memorandum did not create a conventional peace process in which violence stopped before negotiations began. It created a framework in which strikes, threats, retaliation and mediation could unfold alongside one another.
The attacks in Hormuz have damaged that framework and increased the danger of miscalculation. Another round of fighting could be broader and more destructive.
But whether the memorandum is dead depends on what it was expected to achieve.
The ceasefire may be over. The managed confrontation it created may only be beginning.
Episode 111 of Eye for Iran is available on YouTube and all major podcast platforms.
The message had been set in advance by the Friday Prayer Policy Council, which announced that weekly services nationwide would become “Fridays of Blood Vengeance and Revenge” until those blamed for Khamenei’s killing were punished.
The council said revenge was not an emotional response but a “strategic” and religious duty, explicitly naming US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“Carrying out retribution against the principal criminals – particularly the criminal Trump and the child-killing Netanyahu – is an unchanging element of divine justice,” its statement said.
It went further, saying every person or group with the ability to act had a duty to “rise for jihad” and carry out the task without delay. The council said banners calling for vengeance for Khamenei would remain beside Friday prayer pulpits until retribution was achieved.
The language was repeated across major cities.
In Mashhad, where Khamenei was buried, Friday prayer leader Ahmad Alamolhoda said retaliation must be seen by the public rather than remain an unfulfilled promise.
“Revenge and blood vengeance for the martyred leader must remain before the eyes of the people, and the people must see it with their own eyes,” he said. “Only then will real revenge have been taken.”
Saeed Jalili, the Supreme Leader’s representative to the Supreme National Security Council, told worshippers in Mashhad that revenge was a national right and a responsibility for officials.
“If you say Iran’s assets must be released, the greatest asset of our nation was its beloved leader,” Jalili said. “Today, the nation’s right is to defend this great asset through revenge, and it is the duty of officials to pursue it.”
Bushehr’s interim Friday prayer leader Yousef Jamali said worshippers would continue chanting for revenge until the United States and Israel were punished.
“We will stand alongside the officials and the armed forces and, God willing, bring the White House down on its occupants,” Jamali said. “Know that the sword of our revenge will fall upon the oppressors.”
In Rasht, cleric Rasoul Falahati linked revenge to the dispute over the US-Iran memorandum and navigation through the Strait of Hormuz.
“Negotiating in the middle of a war is meaningless,” he said. “Under the recent understanding, we opened the Strait of Hormuz, but America fulfilled none of its commitments and instead moved to further reinforce its bases.”
He said Muslims and “free nations” around the world were ready to take revenge on Trump and Netanyahu and urged Iran’s armed forces to respond firmly to any further US action.
Tehran Friday prayer leader Mohammad Hassan Aboutorabi Fard also accused Washington of violating the memorandum and rejected any US role in the strategic waterway.
“We explicitly declare that under no circumstances will the United States be allowed to interfere in the affairs of the Strait of Hormuz,” he said.
In Qom, Alireza Arafi described revenge against those who carried out and ordered Khamenei’s killing as a legal and religious right that would not be forgotten.
Shiraz interim Friday prayer leader Adel Hajipour used almost identical language, saying the destruction of those responsible was a public demand.
In Malayer, Mohammad-Ali Arzandeh said Friday prayers would remain “Fridays of revenge and blood vengeance” until Israel was destroyed and those blamed for regional insecurity were eliminated.
The emerging message is not unity around solving Iran’s deepening economic, security and diplomatic crises, but unity around revenge, resistance and obedience to the new leadership.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps put that message in explicit terms after Khamenei’s funeral ceremonies in Iran and Iraq, describing the processions as a display of loyalty, unity and resistance.
In a statement thanking the public and officials involved in the ceremonies, the IRGC said “blood vengeance” for Khamenei and others killed was a “certain, legitimate and unforgettable demand.”
It said punishment of the “agents, commanders and supporters” of the killing would remain in the memory of the Islamic community and the so-called resistance front until what it called justice was achieved.
Banners and posters threatening Trump, including calls to kill him and references to bounties, were a recurring theme during the week-long funeral processions for Khamenei, turning the language of vengeance into one of the ceremony’s most visible messages.
The IRGC statement did not name Trump, but its language echoed a wider funeral narrative in which the US president was repeatedly cast as a target of vengeance.
It also framed the funeral processions in Najaf and Karbala as proof of the bond between Iran, Iraq and Tehran’s regional network, and said the IRGC and allied forces would continue Khamenei’s path under Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei.
The message came as hardliners inside Iran were also targeting officials involved in diplomacy with Washington.
The tension has been visible since the announcement of the memorandum with Washington, which hardliners rejected from the outset with slogans such as “We do not accept.” What began as opposition to the agreement soon turned into direct attacks on President Masoud Pezeshkian, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf.
According to ILNA, the confrontation peaked during Khamenei’s funeral ceremonies, which authorities had sought to present as a symbol of unity and political continuity. Instead, groups in the crowd chanted “Death to the compromiser” and slogans against Pezeshkian, Araghchi and Ghalibaf.
Footage from the ceremonies showed Pezeshkian being addressed with insulting chants. Another video showed people throwing stones toward Araghchi and shouting abuse at him, drawing reactions from political figures and media outlets inside Iran.
ILNA warned that national unity cannot be preserved through insults, vilification and polarization, saying some hardliners had moved beyond political criticism into efforts to deepen internal divides.
Mohammad Mohajeri, a conservative political activist, called the chants against Araghchi and Ghalibaf an “Israeli sedition” and warned that silence by Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, and other council members could be read as complicity.
Hesamodin Ashna, a former adviser to Hassan Rouhani, also reacted to the attacks on Araghchi, writing on X: “The same person you are stoning is standing up for you.”
Unity and retaliation
Mohammad-Saleh Jokar, head of parliament’s internal affairs and councils committee, told ILNA the country needed unity “more than ever” and said polarization was what the enemy wanted.
But his definition of unity also centered on retaliation.
“If we are to avenge the blood of the martyrs and the martyred Imam, this will certainly be achieved in the shadow of unity,” Jokar said.
He said Iranians should direct their anger at the United States, adding that “criminal America” must be held accountable and that the nation would not leave alone those who had committed “evil and crime.”
Jokar said the funeral ceremonies had displayed the “strength and power” of the nation and angered the enemy. “We must act in such a way that it dies of this anger,” he said, adding that the “blood of our martyrs” must be avenged.
Call for nuclear weapons
Some hardline lawmakers have pushed the message further. Hossein Samsami, a member of parliament’s economic committee, told Didban Iran that taking revenge for Khamenei’s death required strengthening Iran’s offensive and defensive capabilities and reconsidering the country’s nuclear doctrine.
“A change in our nuclear doctrine is one of the requirements for taking revenge,” he said, implying that Iran should make nuclear weapons.
Samsami also said those responsible for Khamenei’s killing should be treated like Salman Rushdie, referring to Ruhollah Khomeini’s fatwa calling for Rushdie’s death.
He accused Washington of using diplomacy and the funeral period to gather intelligence on Iranian officials, saying the ceasefire and funeral ceremonies were used to identify their residences for future assassinations.
“The enemy enters through the door of peace to break your neck,” he said.
These remarks show how the language of revenge is spreading beyond military retaliation into broader demands for a harder ideological, nuclear and security line.
That shift comes as ordinary Iranians face the consequences of renewed confrontation, from economic pressure and insecurity to the risk of wider war.
ILNA warned that whenever politics has moved toward harsh polarization and the elimination of rivals, “the whole society has paid the price.”
For now, however, the loudest official language around unity is not focused on that price. It is focused on revenge, loyalty and the claim that disagreement itself may serve the enemy.
