We are facing a historic moment: The memorandum signed between Washington and Tehran marks a strategic defeat for the United States that had already become evident on the battlefield.

This conclusion may be uncomfortable for those who continue to view the international system in terms of unchallenged U.S. hegemony. After all, the country failed to impose its political objectives and ended up accepting conditions that, up until recently, it considered unacceptable.

However, the agreement is likely the least bad of the options available to President Trump. It’s worth recalling an observation made by diplomat George F. Kennan about the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam: “There is more respect to be won in the opinion of this world by a resolute and courageous liquidation of unsound positions than by the most stubborn pursuit of extravagant or unpromising objectives.”

Unlike several of his predecessors, Trump seems to have partially grasped this reality — not because he has abandoned U.S. imperial ambitions, but because he has been forced to acknowledge the limits imposed by strategic reality. The question is whether he will stay the course or attempt to reverse it under pressure from regional allies and sectors of the U.S. establishment.

Threats to the Agreement

Far from eliminating the root causes of the conflict, the 14-point memorandum opens a trial period during which the situation could deteriorate. Three factors, in particular, could play a pivotal role.

The first source of tension is Lebanon. Iran has significantly raised the political and military cost of any new Israeli offensive. At the same time, Tehran seeks to consolidate a new form of regional deterrence that will allow it to respond to future provocations without triggering a full-scale war. The balance remains extremely fragile.

The second issue is Iran’s nuclear program and the lifting of economic sanctions, the most complex aspect from both a technical and diplomatic standpoint. The agreement could become jeopardized over any disagreement over, for example, verification mechanisms, timelines, or the scope of the sanctions.

The third element is the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s demand for formal recognition of its effective control over this strategic sea lane could lead to future tensions and conflict. Although Tehran does not demand transit tolls, the Strait is a crucial nerve center of the global energy trade.

For this reason, the first sixty days — the period during which both sides have resolved to finalize the agreement — will be decisive.

Iranian authorities view the agreement with a mixture of hope and mistrust. Hope because economic stabilization and a period of military reconstruction are valuable objectives following a war that has caused hundreds of billions of dollars in damages. Mistrust because historical experience has taught them that Washington tends to reinterpret agreements depending on the needs of the moment.

The Limits of U.S. Military Power

The war with Iran has also brought to light a much broader issue: the United States’ growing difficulty in sustaining protracted conflicts.

The disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan had already revealed the erosion of U.S. military capacity. U.S. society today lacks the necessary willingness to undertake long and costly wars. The military campaign in Iran also failed to achieve its initial political objectives, instead exposing significant operational and strategic limitations. This created a humiliating situation for the world’s most powerful military. More importantly, the ability to translate military force into lasting political results appears increasingly eroded.

The war also brought to light increasingly significant economic constraints. Unlike in other historical periods, Washington can no longer wage protracted conflicts without considering their consequences for a deeply integrated global economy.

A serious disruption of traffic in the Strait of Hormuz would have triggered a global energy crisis with unpredictable consequences for inflation, financial markets, and supply chains. Paradoxically, the economic interdependence that enabled decades of globalization under U.S. leadership has also become a factor that restricts its freedom of military action. That is to say, the more integrated the global economy becomes, the greater the potential costs of a protracted war.

One of the most significant aspects of the memorandum is the implicit recognition of Iran’s new place in the regional balance of power. Washington is forced to accept that Tehran will retain its defensive missile capabilities, preserve its civilian nuclear program, and continue to play a significant role in shaping Lebanon’s political landscape — issues that were considered red lines by the United States just a few months ago.

These concessions constitute a practical acknowledgment that Iran cannot be excluded from the regional order, and that attempts to reduce it to a subordinate power have failed.

The Challenge to U.S. Maritime Hegemony

Unlike previous defeats suffered by the United States since World War II, the conflict with Iran has called into question control of the maritime straits and, by extension, dominance over global trade routes.

U.S. hegemony was built on a combination of financial, technological, and military superiority, but also on effective control of the seas. For decades, the security of maritime routes has been one of the fundamental pillars of capitalist globalization under U.S. leadership. However, the crisis surrounding the Strait of Hormuz demonstrated that this control can no longer be taken for granted.

For this reason, we may be entering a post-hegemonic era: The period during which Washington could unilaterally define the rules of the international game appears to be drawing to a close. What comes next is unclear, but the cracks in the old order are growing.

However, this doesn’t necessarily mean the immediate replacement of the United States, nor does it imply the disappearance of U.S. influence. Rather, it describes a transitional situation in which the world’s leading power retains considerable military, financial, and technological superiority but is progressively losing the ability to translate that superiority into automatic political obedience.

In the years following the Cold War, Washington could intervene militarily, or exert economic and diplomatic pressure with the reasonable expectation that its allies would follow suit and its adversaries would eventually comply. This capacity has been eroded.

Today, allies hesitate or outright refuse to support certain initiatives, while adversaries are more willing to challenge the red lines imposed by the United States. Great powers, regional powers, and even smaller actors are beginning to act on the assumption that the United States remains extraordinarily powerful, but is no longer omnipotent. And they will adjust their strategic calculations accordingly.

The other powers will take note of this reality and adjust their strategic calculations accordingly. As I wrote in April, the war “undermines deterrence. This is the central mechanism of American power: its allies’ confidence in its protection and the adversaries’ fear of challenging it…”

In this context, China has emerged as a key structural beneficiary of the conflict — not because it has intervened directly or is reaping huge immediate gains, but because every relative setback in the United States’ ability to unilaterally impose its decisions expands Beijing’s room for maneuver.

While Washington was consuming political and military resources trying to sustain an increasingly unpopular war, China consolidated its image as a “prudent” power, strengthened its economic ties with the Middle East, and watched as several traditional U.S. allies avoided fully aligning themselves with American strategy.

More importantly, the conflict with Iran has demonstrated that even a power of the United States’ magnitude faces growing difficulties in mobilizing international coalitions behind its objectives. The country’s political isolation stands in contrast to the war in Afghanistan, which enjoyed international support following the September 11 attacks. Even during the Iraq War, despite opposition from France and Germany, a significant number of countries joined President Bush’s 2003 invasion.

Specters of Vietnam

The defeat in Iran has elicited comparisons to the United States’ disastrous war in Vietnam. However, this comparison has obvious limitations. For one thing, the defeat in Vietnam was the result of extraordinary popular mobilizations and a national resistance that ultimately fueled a powerful anti-war movement within the United States itself.

The outcome in Iran took on different characteristics. Due to the bourgeois nature of its leadership, the Iranian regime deliberately avoided appealing to a regional revolutionary mobilization and instead based its strategy on its capabilities for asymmetric warfare: missiles, drones, and control of strategic geographic positions.

Nor did an international anti-war movement emerge comparable to the one that recently condemned the genocide in Palestine. This is partly explained by the reactionary nature of the Iranian regime, which makes it difficult for broad progressive sectors to identify politically with its cause. Nevertheless, the Iranian resistance in the face of two superior military powers — the United States and Israel — has earned the sympathy of vanguard sectors internationally.

Politically and ideologically speaking, it’s clear that the Iranian regime will attempt to capitalize on the U.S. defeat to bolster its legitimacy. However, it would be a mistake to conclude that only the state apparatus will benefit from the new conditions created by the war.

This issue takes on particular importance given the protest movements and subsequent repression that swept over broad sectors of the Iranian population in December and January. At first glance, it might seem that a victory over the United States would only serve to strengthen the regime’s authoritarian tendencies. However, the reality is more complex.

Unlike what happened during the early years of the Iran-Iraq War, the authorities attempted to limit popular participation in the conflict as much as possible. Nevertheless, it was the population as a whole that endured the bombings and economic consequences of the war. And, contrary to what imperialist propaganda expected, there was neither internal disintegration nor a mass defection in the face of this external aggression.

In this sense, the U.S. defeat has also transformed the objective and subjective parameters of the internal Iranian situation. Demands for higher wages, better living conditions, and democratic rights will inevitably surface, and do so in a different context. The defeat of imperialism does not resolve the internal contradictions of Iranian society, but it does alter the terrain on which these contradictions manifest. The population will have seen that even the world’s leading power can be contained and that the balance of power is not immutable.

In this sense, it would be a mistake to mechanically equate the weakening of imperialism with an unlimited strengthening of the Iranian regime. Future social struggles may also seek to capitalize on this new situation, just as the government will seek to use it to its advantage.

At the regional level, the Shia minorities in the Gulf, as well as broad exploited sectors of the petro-monarchies, have observed that regimes once considered invulnerable have significant weaknesses, a realization that may influence future social and political dynamics.

The Rift Between Washington and Tel Aviv

One of the most visible political consequences of the war is likely the growing rift between the United States and Israel.

For the first time in decades, mutual accusations are being voiced publicly. Washington has reproached Israel for contributing to an unsustainable escalation. Indeed, at time of writing, Iran has once again closed the Strait of Hormuz in response to Israeli bombing in Lebanon. The Zionist regime, meanwhile, accuses the White House of having abandoned its main regional ally.

The statements by Trump and JD Vance were particularly revealing. Criticizing Israel at the recent G7 summit, Trump said, “Too many people have been killed. 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.”

Vice President Vance, meanwhile, responded to Israel’s criticism by emphasizing, “what is your exact proposal? You’re a country of nine million people. You can’t just kill your way out of solving every single national security problem that you have,“

The implicit message is clear: if Israel decides to continue escalating the conflict and provokes a new Iranian response, it cannot automatically assume it will have the same U.S. backing as in the past. This transformation carries profound political significance, one that has taken the Israeli government and IDF by surprise.

For decades, Israel built much of its international influence on the perception that it had privileged and unlimited access to Washington, and many governments tailored their foreign policies to this reality. If that perception begins to erode, the consequences could extend far beyond the Middle East.

Israel After the War and the Strategic Crisis of Zionism

With or without Prime Minister Netanyahu, Israel will continue to act according to a logic based on the pursuit of absolute security through permanent war, an orientation adopted since October 7, 2023 in particular. This orientation will continue to manifest itself in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanon. The difference is that it will do so with less international legitimacy and possibly with less automatic U.S. backing.

If, even before the memorandum, the indefinite war had led the Zionist state to lose almost everything, under the new conditions it could prove fatal. The first to pay the price could be Netanyahu, who has ended up having to accept surrender on all three fronts: against Hezbollah, Hamas, and Iran.

The war also exposes deeper contradictions within the Zionist project: The more the conflict fronts expand, the more difficult it becomes to achieve the desired security.

The Beginning of a New Phase

It is too soon to know all the consequences of this U.S. strategic defeat. But some trends are already visible.

Firstly, governments that bet on the full restoration of U.S. hegemony will have to rethink their calculations. This has particularly significant implications for Latin America, where Washington had attempted to rebuild mechanisms of influence inspired by a new version of the National Security Doctrine.

At the same time, the weakening of Israel’s position could reduce the intensity of certain political and ideological pressure campaigns that have dominated the international scene since October, 2023.

None of this implies an immediate transformation of the international situation in favor of the mass movement, but it does mark the beginning of a historic transition in which the United States’ ability to transform its immense military superiority into effective political results appears increasingly limited.

The memorandum with Iran expresses precisely that contradiction. Washington retains unparalleled power, but it can no longer impose its will in the same way it did twenty or thirty years ago.

In this sense, the memorandum marks the beginning of a new stage in the evolution of the world order. The era of seemingly unbeatable imperialism, which for decades reinforced neoliberal offensives against workers and peoples around the world, may be coming to an end.

Originally published in Spanish on June 20 in La Izquierda Diario

Translated and adapted by Otto Fors

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