Amaresh Misra on a Fragile US-Iran Deal and the Shifting Balance of Power

A deal announced, its terms not yet published

After roughly 110 days since the conflict began, the United States and Iran announced an agreement, to be signed formally in Switzerland on 19 June and then tested over a 60-day period. The host, Bushra Khanum Fahad, opened her conversation with the war historian Amaresh Misra by asking whether this amounted to a peace deal, and whether it was America's biggest defeat. Misra began with a caveat: the details have not yet been published, and for a memorandum of understanding that is when the substance emerges.

What was announced, he said, is that the Strait of Hormuz will open, gradually and under Iranian coordination, and that the American naval blockade will begin to be lifted. He noted that some ships, including one Indian vessel by his account, had already passed after coordinating with Iran. The clause he found most striking is that a final agreement is to be converted into a Security Council resolution, which, as he described it, would record that the United States will never attack Iran. "This has never happened before," he said, adding that it shows how desperate Washington was to withdraw from Hormuz.

Why he thinks Trump stepped back

Misra argued that Donald Trump's real aim was to seize Iran's Kharg Island and dominate its oil as Washington has done in Venezuela. He pointed to Trump's own remark, made a few days earlier, that the country was not up for it. Two pressures compelled a settlement, in his account. One was domestic. The other came from the Gulf, where Qatar was negotiating a separate arrangement with Iran, and where Qatar had reportedly said it would halt its own gas supplies if war resumed, in return for Iran sparing its facilities. If Qatar could settle, he reasoned, Saudi Arabia and others could follow, and Trump could not afford to see his regional partners cut their own deals.

He also described a war fought in several registers: a 40-day hot war, mostly of missiles and aircraft with no ground troops, a ceasefire on 8 April, and then a longer contest of narratives and positioning with intermittent fire. In this long contest, he said, Iran bent Washington. By the account he gave, Iran did not hit the UAE, Saudi Arabia or Qatar in a recent exchange, but did strike American installations in Bahrain and Kuwait, which he read as evidence of a deliberate strategy of splitting the Gulf states from the United States.

Lebanon, Israel and the fragility of the agreement

Misra was blunt that the agreement may not survive contact with Israel. Iran's condition is that any ceasefire covers all fronts, and he said Trump has now agreed Lebanon should be included, after Israel struck Beirut again on 14 June. Israel's government, however, is signalling that it is not bound: he cited Israel's defence minister saying it will not withdraw, and another minister calling for the deal to be rejected. Israel, he said, occupies part of southern Lebanon and, by his figures, still holds large parts of Gaza. He cited Israeli-reported figures of more than 1,200 soldiers wounded and over 30 killed in Lebanon since 2 March, and argued the real toll is higher.

That puts Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a difficult position, in his account. An election is due in October, Netanyahu's party is trailing in polls, and he cited a New York Times report that, among Israelis, opposition to Netanyahu outnumbers support three to one, with many wanting a leadership that will negotiate. Trump, he said, may be counting on that public mood.

His forecast was that several outcomes are possible and none is stable. Trump may extend the 60-day window, which Iran also expects, since a full settlement in 60 days is unrealistic; he suggested Trump is buying time until the midterm elections in November. The signing may slip. Or it may happen and Israel and Iran may then go to war over Lebanon, with Trump watching from a distance and calling for calm. He said his own expectation is a clash between Israel and Iran within the 60 days, and that Iran will try to draw the United States in, because it will not accept a return to proxy war. If Washington does not restrain Israel, he said, Iran has said it will step in itself. The host, for her part, pressed him on whether Washington could really stay out, given how tightly she sees Israel and the United States bound together, and Misra allowed that American assets remain in Israel and that the presence of American forces in the region is itself part of the 60-day negotiation.

Who won

Asked directly whether Iran is the clear winner, as many Western commentators now say, Misra answered yes, while stressing that this is only the first phase. He described a country under 40 years of sanctions, written off as weak, that forced a direct confrontation instead of the proxy wars that suited Washington, and in doing so raised the issues of Hezbollah, Gaza and Yemen. He pointed to what he said was the latest message from Iran's leadership: unity of all resistance fronts, from Yemen and Gaza to Lebanon, Iraq and Syria. He also said Russia and China had assured Iran of support from behind, noting that Trump himself thanked them, and that Vladimir Putin had recently said a war with Europe is inevitable.

In Misra's telling, Iran is now the largest power in the Middle East, having displaced Israel, and for the first time since Israel's founding in 1948 the United States and Israel appear to have a real rift, with Trump forced to use crude language about Israeli actions. Countries that once offered Palestinians only lip service, while maintaining ties with Israel, will now have to reckon with that, he suggested. He did not, however, expect a quick resolution. War, he said, is the primary condition and peace the secondary one, in the way that the twentieth century's two world wars were needed to complete the decline of European empires. The shift from a unipolar world under the United States is still unfolding, and he expects more violence.

On the nuclear question, Misra was careful. The Bushehr plant, run with Russia for civilian energy, is not in dispute, he said. As he understands it, Iran holds around 11 tonnes of enriched uranium and Trump is specifically concerned about roughly 970 pounds of it, less than a tonne. Iran, he added, can always keep the option of moving toward a bomb, and it has judged that even a temporary pushing back of Israel and the United States sows seeds that will last and may eventually cause a rupture between the two. The host raised reports of unease in Iran over the terms, including protests against Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, and noted Iranian claims that about $25 billion is on offer, half of it, some $12 billion, at risk if Israel does not withdraw from Lebanon. Misra did not think the uranium terms were yet clear enough to judge.

Pakistan and India

On Pakistan, Misra said the country has settled on a stance in which it repairs relations with Washington but will not abandon China, and would choose Beijing if forced. Trump knows this, he said, which is why he praises Pakistan. He predicted a coming confrontation between the United States and China, whether as a trade war or a shooting war, at which point Pakistan will have to choose.

On India, Misra said there had been a serious miscalculation, tied to the prime minister's visit to Israel on 26 February, and that the moment calls for reassessment. He was careful to say this concerns the wider Indian state, its bureaucracy and mindset, and that this same establishment has kept relations with Iran from collapsing, which limited the damage. The host said Indian-flagged ships were among those hit and criticised the government's response. Misra added that if a trade deal on agriculture with Washington is fully implemented it will cause a major upheaval in India, and he raised, as a large open question, what American and Israeli planners intend for India, saying that some in the ruling party share the worry. His conclusion was that the government's 2047 goal of a developed India cannot be met unless the country changes its geopolitical priorities.

Misra closed by cautioning against simple readings. Heroes and villains still exist, he said, but the world of simplicity is over, and the next 60 days will show how much of this agreement was substance and how much was posture.