Amna Nawaz:

The Iranian Foreign Ministry said late today that the text of the agreement has now been signed by the presidents of both countries. Negotiating teams still plan to meet in Geneva on Friday.

To assess the U.S.-Iranian agreement, we're again joined by two of our Iran watchers. Alan Eyre worked in the State Department, was a senior member of the Obama administration's negotiating team for the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. He's now at the Middle East Institute.

And Miad Maleki was born and raised in Iran. Until last year he was the associate director for sanction targeting in the U.S. Treasury Department with a focus on Iran. He's now a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.

Welcome back to you both.

Before we jump into the details, I just want to get a quick big picture take from each of you.

Alan, I will start with you. Is this a good agreement for the U.S.? If you had to give it a grade, what would you give it?

Alan Eyre, Middle East Institute:

Well, the fact that we got it was fantastic. I'm hopeful because we have stopped the bleeding. We have cut our losses. And, again, the details of this agreement are not as important as the fact that we finally realized we were not getting to where we wanted to go with military action.

In terms of the content, it's clear that Iran got the better of us.

Amna Nawaz:

Miad, what's your quick take on this?

Miad Maleki, The Foundation for Defense of Democracies: Well, I mean, my view here is we had enormous leverage with Iran, militarily, politically, economically. They were in the worst spot ever been since 1979 revolution.

I think, looking at the text of this memorandum of understanding, I see a level of underappreciation for that leverage that we had. I think we gave up more than what we should have to just get the Strait of Hormuz open.

Amna Nawaz:

So, Miad, pick up on that point, just a little more on that. What specifically should have been in there that's not? What's most problematic for you in the deal?

Miad Maleki:

You know, in my view, and I have said this before, if we had just lifted the blockade, Iranian regime would have had to force to open the Strait of Hormuz for most for the sake of their own economy and also because they have to normalize the relationship with UAE, where they have hundreds of billions of dollars in assets and funds to go through, with the Chinese, with the Indians, with Pakistanis.

They have to get back to get their economy back. I mean, it's an economy that has collapsed. So, I don't think we should have given a no new sanction type commitment or any kind of authorization for oil sale just to get the Strait of Hormuz open and without getting clear concessions on the nuclear front.

Amna Nawaz:

Alan, what's your take on that? The losing of possible new sanctions leverage, easing of existing sanctions, does that allow Iran to build back up its military and nuclear capabilities?

Alan Eyre:

Well, first, I respectfully disagree with my friend and colleague Miad when he talks twice about just reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

The Strait of Hormuz being closed was a sucking chest wound to the world economy. And the most urgent, exigent thing we needed to do was try to get that open. This deal does that. Everything else is secondary. To be brutally honest, it's highly unlikely that the Trump administration will be able to get a nuclear deal with Iran.

It kicked the can, the nuclear can, down the road with this agreement. And as I said, I don't think really it's going to get any better than this. So we will have a de facto cease-fire, neither war, neither peace. But at least we could begin to get traffic, maritime volume through the strait, back close to what it was before.

Though, with Iranian control of the strait, it's a real question as to whether we will ever achieve the prewar levels, which is one of the many reasons why this war was such a massive strategic blunder.

Amna Nawaz:

Alan, just to follow up on that though, when the president announced the war, he said the U.S. was going to completely destroy the Iranian missile program. When he was asked about it today, he said -- "You don't mind Iran having ballistic missiles?"

He said: "Well, I'm saying if other countries have them, it's unfair for them not to have some." Is that an acceptable outcome for the U.S. and its allies?

Alan Eyre:

Well, first, I have given up trying to divinate what U.S. policy is based on President Trump's statements because they change so radically.

I mean, some of the things he said today, he could have been the IRGC spokesman in terms of justifications for this deal. But, no, we haven't achieved any war goals. Iran has maintained a significant missile and drone force. It will use whatever money it gets to a large extent to rebuild its defense industrial base.

It's going to weaponize and monetize control of the Strait of Hormuz. So we haven't dealt -- not only have we not dealt with the strategic threat, the very real strategic threat Iran poses; we have made it worse by putting a new militarized, radicalized leadership and making them more likely to actually seek a nuclear weapon. So, again, massive loss.

Amna Nawaz:

Miad, did the U.S. achieve any of its stated war goals? You heard Alan say we have made it worse. Do you agree?

Miad Maleki:

I disagree.

I think I also wanted to add that saying that we need to cut our losses, let's look at the facts. Before this war, in January, when Iran had $435 million a day in trade through the Persian Gulf, when Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz was open, they had the largest protests in the history of Islamic Republic.

They had to kill 40,000 innocent Iranians to send people back home because of their economy. Now we're going through a war. And I think the most punishing thing that you can do to this regime is send it back to deal with the state of economy that is in today.

And for that reason, I think opening the Strait of Hormuz didn't really need a whole lot of sanctions relief or any kind of commitments to the regime, and they would have had to open it.

Now, as far as the objective, just to be clear, I think it was false to say that you can go and topple a regime or bring about serious, meaningful changes in political dynamics within the Iranian regime with a campaign of airstrikes.

I think the reason for that campaign was causing degradation and degrading Iran's missile drone programs and the buildup of their nuclear enrichment program. I think those have been met. I think Iran is significantly in much worse position than it was before the war. It's less of a threat to our national security.

Just in 2023, IRGC targeted water facilities in the state of Pennsylvania. They were building up drones and missile facilities in Venezuela. Now they're nowhere close to posing that type of threat to us. Now I think we should just send them back and have them deal with the reality that they faced in January, but much worse economic situation.

Amna Nawaz:

Alan, do you agree with that, that the Iranian regime's capabilities have been degraded, no longer as much of a threat to the U.S.?

Alan Eyre:

Well, they never were a threat to the U.S.

Again, part of the pretext for this war was that they posed an imminent threat to the United States. They don't. We destroyed their air force. Air force wasn't a threat. We destroyed their navy. Navy wasn't a threat. What was The threat? Missiles and drones targeting the Strait of Hormuz, which they have now learned to do.

And they retain that capacity. It's very easy for Iran to reclose the strait. So we haven't addressed the existing threat that Iran posed to the U.S. As I said earlier, we have made it worse. And, again, if the crux of this was the nuclear issue, this war didn't touch nuclear facilities.

The Iranian nuclear program is about the same as it was after last year's June 12 Israel-U.S. attack on it. And, unfortunately, to repeat what I said earlier, the only thing we have done now is incentivized Iran to build a nuclear weapon, which is something they weren't doing before we attacked them.

Amna Nawaz:

Alan Eyre, Miad Maleki, fair to say a lot of questions remain. We will have to have you both back to unpack it all some more. Thank you to you both for joining us tonight.

Alan Eyre:

Thank you, Amna.