Days after striking a framework peace deal with Iran, the Trump administration still hasn’t bothered to release the document to the public. But if the leaked contents are accurate, then the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that is designed to buy time for a deeper, more technical negotiation over Iran’s nuclear program is, if not unimpressive, a damning indictment of the entire war.

At its core, the 14-point draft, which will be signed by Vice President JD Vance and Iranian Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf this Friday, is a bid to rewind back to 27 February, the day before the conflict began. According to the MOU, the war will cease on all fronts, including in Lebanon where Israel and Hezbollah continue to fight. Upon the MOU’s signing, the United States will lift the naval blockade on Iran’s ports, and Tehran will “immediately take steps” to bring maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz back to pre-war levels over the next 30 days. The plan also binds Washington to initiate discussions with regional partners on a massive $300 billion reconstruction plan for Iran over a 60-day time frame, the same length of time US and Iranian officials will sit down to navigate a path forward on Tehran’s nuclear work.

But there’s no use sugarcoating it: judging from the leaked language, the Iranians have won out in this negotiation so far. The number of concessions Tehran was able to wrangle out of the Trump administration was considerable. For instance, upon signing, the US Treasury Department will issue waivers to allow Iran to export crude oil and petrochemical products to the global market again. Banking sanctions will be waived as well, which means money from those crude oil sales can be accessed by the Iranians (the mechanics of how this would all work are still unclear). If nuclear negotiations progress, the US will make some of Iran’s frozen assets available — at least $100 billion of Tehran’s own money is stuck in overseas accounts. And the nuclear portion of the negotiation will only begin after all of this is implemented to Iran’s satisfaction, which means the Trump administration is basically frontloading economic incentives before the meaty nuclear issue is hammered out.

What does the United States receive? Other than an Iranian assurance that the Strait of Hormuz will be open again, not much. Iran promised never to produce a nuclear weapon in the MOU, but this is not exactly a bombshell; Tehran has committed to this multiple times before, including at the very top of the Obama-era Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that Trump shredded in his first term. The details of how this commitment will be verified, the extent to which Iran will be able to retain some of its nuclear infrastructure and enriched uranium stockpile, how long an enrichment ban will last or whether there will be an enrichment ban at all are still to be determined. Trump, perhaps in response to the bad media coverage this week, is already threatening to resume airstrikes if the talks don’t go his way.

Analysts will harp on about the MOU’s terms. Trump’s boosters will attempt to package it as the best thing since sliced bread. His critics will blast the document as far worse than Obama’s JCPOA.

But the specific terms are something of a distraction from the main event. Generally, peace agreements are a reflection of the balance of power on the ground, the combatants’ ability and willingness to continue fighting, and the interests at stake. The United States had superior military power at its disposal, but Iran had geography, a higher pain threshold and a more vital interest: survival. Iranian capitulation was always a fantasy.

The framework accord did not emerge from a vacuum. It wasn’t just the result of inexperienced, underqualified or overwhelmed American negotiators who didn’t know what they were doing or were fleeced by those on the other side of the table. Rather, the MOU is a product of how the war turned out. Trump became tired of perpetuating a morass that spiked energy prices at home, brought his approval ratings into the gutter and created an election-year problem for his party. Four months after beginning an unnecessary conflict, and belatedly seeing that the costs were piling up, he searched for an exit ramp. And he was willing to pay a hefty price to get it.

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Daniel R. DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a syndicated foreign affairs columnist for the Chicago Tribune.

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