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The United States and Iran are set to formally sign an agreement Friday to end military hostilities, reopen the Strait of Hormuz and begin negotiations on a long-term peace accord between the two countries.
According to terms of the memorandum of understanding obtained by CNN and other media outlets, there is to be "an immediate and permanent end to the war on all fronts, including Lebanon." The leaked text also promises sanctions relief for Iran and access to the country's frozen assets held abroad, as well as a $300 billion fund for reconstruction and development. The memo reiterates Iran's long-held position that it will never produce nuclear weapons, with the fate of its nuclear program delayed until further negotiations.
Israel has vowed to ignore the U.S.-Iran agreement and maintain its occupation of southern Lebanon, with many Israeli leaders and commentators expressing outrage about the apparent terms of the deal for being too conciliatory to Iran. President Trump, meanwhile, has expressed criticism of Israel's actions in Lebanon.
"Trump's had enough," says Israeli political analyst Ori Goldberg, speaking to Democracy Now! from Tel Aviv. "He hasn't had enough because he cares about the Palestinians or about Lebanon. He's had enough of Netanyahu's disrespect. He's had enough of the notion that it's actually Netanyahu who's calling the shots."
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President Trump had made a late endorsement for Mr. Collins, who had campaigned as a MAGA candidate also able to appeal to moderates.
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He is a former sniper with the Navy SEALs who is trying to spring an upset over President Trump's preferred candidate.
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More than 100 days into hostilities, Iran and the United States say they have reached a preliminary deal to end the war. Israel, however, is not a party to the tentative deal and says it plans to keep occupying areas of southern Lebanon — a position still contested by Iran and the key sticking point to the partial ceasefire deal agreed to by the U.S. and Iran in April. Although the new agreement is set to be signed Friday, Israel's unrelenting assault on Lebanon could once again spoil any deal.
"This is going to become the center of whether any actual agreement takes place," says Drop Site News's Jeremy Scahill, who joins Democracy Now! to break down what we know about this latest round of diplomacy. As the U.S. now intends to end the war without accomplishing its initial goals of regime change and nuclear capitulation, it appears that Trump has "finally accepted some version of his manufactured and almost entirely false victory narrative." Scahill, who has spoken extensively to Iranian officials about the negotiations, says it remains to be seen if Iran can successfully "decouple" the U.S.-Israeli alliance from Israel's expansionary front in Lebanon, or whether it has relinquished too much of its own "strategic leverage" by agreeing to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
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In "yet another deeply alarming appointment," President Donald Trump has picked major Trump campaign donor Bill Pulte to replace former Congressmember Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence, the nation's top spy chief who reports directly to the president. Pulte is "not somebody who has any of the requisite experience for this incredibly important office," says Matt Platkin, a former attorney general for New Jersey. Pulte is also expected to continue in his other high-level positions as chair of the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and chair of the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) and director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, where he is accused of abusing his power to pursue political prosecutions against Trump's enemies.
We also speak to Harvard Law School professor Nancy Gertner, a retired federal judge, about legal challenges to Trump's mass deportation campaign, particularly involving widespread abuses committed by DHS and ICE. "What we're seeing now is an effort for the courts to catch up to those abuses, and they are. Legislation is going to be needed to make this even more clear," says Gertner.
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Nearly two months after the United States and Iran agreed to a ceasefire, are the two sides any closer to a lasting peace deal?
We speak with Robert Malley, the Middle East program director at the International Crisis Group, who worked in multiple Democratic administrations and helped negotiate the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal with Iran. He says Trump's decision to pull the U.S. out of that deal in 2018 "was a completely reckless and absurd one," with the Trump administration renegotiating many of the same issues, as well as pushing to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran did not previously control. "We should never have been in the position we're in now."
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