The US and Iran's Peace Deal Explained

**Brian Lehrer** (0:10)
It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. So Bloomberg News got a copy of the 14-point Memorandum of Understanding that the US and Iran are supposed to sign on Friday. Apparently Reuters has one too, and it's a little bit different, but the way Bloomberg has it, it includes reopening the Strait of Hormuz, a lot of money flowing to Iran, both versions have that, and what the language calls the permanent end, permanent end to the war on all fronts including Lebanon.
Now, on money flowing to Iran, here's a semantic difference you may find curious. Bloomberg reports that quote, Trump had earlier denied that the US would pay Iran $300 billion.
The draft says only that the US and its partners would ensure financing of that amount, unquote. Maybe our guest, David Sanger from The New York Times, will be able to explain the difference between payment and financing, and maybe he'll be able to explain another difference. The Times itself reported this week, Iran won't charge tolls to use the Strait of Hormuz, but they may start charging fees. Tolls? No, but fees? Yes. We'll see if David can explain. Also, the nuclear weapons issue is definitely not resolved in this text. The agreement is just that the talks would now begin on that for 60 days. The Wall Street Journal editorial page, which notes up top that they've been largely supportive of the war, asks, if the regime won't agree to dismantle its nuclear program now, why would it do so after weeks of oil exports and other relief? The Wall Street Journal editorial is called Trump Stages and Iran Retreat. A big unknown, will Israel go along with language that restrains it from continuing to fight Hezbollah in Lebanon? It may surprise you that Trump said this about Israel's tactics there yesterday.

**Donald Trump** (2:10)
I'll tell you what, Israel's fighting Hezbollah too long, and too many people are being killed. And you don't have to knock down an apartment house every time you're looking for somebody, because there are a lot of people in those apartment houses. And they're not all Hezbollah, that I can tell you.
And I suggested to Israel to let Syria take care of Hezbollah. Because to be honest with you, I think they do a better job of doing it.

**Brian Lehrer** (2:35)
Well, if that's what he thinks about the Lebanon operation, I wonder what he really thinks about Gaza that he hasn't said publicly. Another Bloomberg News headline says, Trump-Iran nuclear deal risks falling short of Obama deal.
That's very similar to one in The New York Times yesterday, Obama's nuclear deal looms over Trump's Iran negotiations. The author of that article joins us now, David Sanger, White House and National Security correspondent for The New York Times and author of books, including New Cold Wars, China's Rise, Russia's Invasion and America's Struggle to Save the West on the Reemergence of Superpower Conflict, published in 2024 David, always good of you to join us from time to time. Welcome back to WNYC.

**David Sanger** (3:22)
Great to be back with you, Brian.

**Brian Lehrer** (3:24)
First, we'll work from the text of The Agreement as published by Bloomberg and assume it's accurate. I gather you've seen the Reuters version also, and you may have some comparisons on, you know, that raise some questions. But have you or your Times colleagues independently verified any of this as well yet?

**David Sanger** (3:45)
Well, we've written a lot over the past couple of weeks about what we believe is contained within the 14 paragraph agreement. There are some differences between the Bloomberg version, the Reuters versions, and several others that have been floating around. My email box is overflowing with slightly different versions of the document, some of which may not be fakes. They may just be earlier versions before they actually electronically signed the agreement on Sunday. I'm also working from descriptions of it from people who were involved in its drafting.
And I would say, the most important thing to know about this agreement is that it's not much of an agreement. It reopens the Strait of Hormuz, but the Strait wasn't closed when the war started. It's a good thing to get the Strait up and running again, but that largely returns things to the status quo, and it's not even clear that it fully does that. And then it doesn't even begin to deal with the nuclear issues that the Obama administration struggled with in 18 months of negotiations, starting in 2014 through 2015
I think, Brian, you and I talked during those, because I was covering those around the world, and it's a long, complex document, and that's what the administration is headed into now. And that's why I said that the Obama document looms over what Trump is doing, and you see President Trump trash-talking either that agreement or today President Obama himself in every time this topic comes up.