Author: Zhang Yaqi, Wallstreetcn.com
A series of violations by the United States following the signing of the memorandum of understanding has completely dashed the window for diplomatic détente between Iran and the US, and directly prompted Iran's hardliners to prioritize military preparedness over negotiations.
According to CCTV News, after US President Trump threatened on the 14th to "soon declare the Strait of Hormuz as US territory," Iran announced on the 15th that it had reached an agreement with Oman regarding navigation through the Strait of Hormuz. However, both the US and Iran continue to assert their own claims over control of the strait. On the same day, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei publicly stated this week that due to US violations of the memorandum of understanding, subsequent negotiations never commenced, rendering the 60-day negotiation deadline set in the memorandum 'entirely meaningless.'
According to a report by The Wall Street Journal on August 16, intercepted communications and other intelligence indicate that Iran's hardline senior leadership has completed a strategic pivot—within two months of the June 17 memorandum signing, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) quietly dispatched advisors to allied militias in Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon, and other regions, expanded missile and drone production, and extended the battlefield to the Red Sea, causing alarm among Gulf state allies. Simultaneously, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei recently conducted a large-scale reshuffle of Iran's security and military institutions, placing veteran hardliners in all key positions.
This series of deployments has already produced tangible effects: the Houthis have announced a blockade of Saudi shipping channels in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait; Iranian missiles have successfully breached US defense systems to strike targets in Jordan and Kuwait; Iran has hit six UAE vessels in the past two weeks; and supply risks to the global energy market continue to rise. Diplomatically, Iran announced it had reached an agreement with Oman on a passage plan for the Strait of Hormuz, but Iran's foreign minister made clear that this is not the same as reopening the strait to international shipping.
When Trump signed the US-Iran memorandum of understanding at the Palace of Versailles in France on June 17, the greatest anticipated obstacle was how to persuade US domestic critics to accept this relatively lenient agreement towards Iran. According to CCTV News, the memorandum promised Iran sanctions relief, the unfreezing of tens of billions of dollars in assets, and proposed establishing a $300 billion reconstruction fund; Iran's main obligations were to open the Strait of Hormuz and engage in negotiations on nuclear issues.
However, media reports citing informed Iranian and Arab officials reveal that Iran's hardline leadership fundamentally distrusted this agreement, viewing it as merely a tactic by the US and Israel to ease global economic pressure and buy time for a next, larger-scale strike. Even as US diplomats were lobbying worldwide to promote the agreement, Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of Supreme Leader Khamenei, had already begun deploying the security system to prepare for larger-scale confrontation.
Three weeks later, in early July, Iran fired upon a vessel guided through the strait by the US military, catching Washington off guard. IRGC spokesperson Brigadier General Hossein Mohebbi later publicly confirmed this dual-track strategy: "We fully utilized the opportunity during the ceasefire period to enhance our capabilities, accelerate missile production rates, and improve missile accuracy."
Media reports citing officials familiar with Arab intelligence analysis revealed that intercepted communications between Iran and its allies in Yemen and Iraq show the IRGC dispatched commanders to Houthi-controlled areas, coordinating with Iran-backed Iraqi militias to jointly plan escalation against Saudi Arabia. Specific deployments included: transporting missiles, naval weapons, and drone launchers to positions overlooking the Red Sea, and providing the Houthis with intelligence, target lists (including Saudi ports and energy facilities), and tactical advice for evading Saudi counterattacks.
Simultaneously, the IRGC issued warnings to Gulf states: if the US strikes Iranian energy facilities, Iran will destroy similar targets of the other side, and detailed individual target lists were delivered to the relevant Arab countries.
The IRGC also formulated new plans for further escalation. According to Iranian officials and public statements, options include: sabotaging undersea internet cables in the Persian Gulf, creating political turmoil in Shiite-majority countries like Kuwait and Bahrain, and even not ruling out ground operations against Kuwait. Kuwait has regarded these threats as real risks—in early May, the country announced its security forces intercepted six IRGC members who had landed on a Kuwaiti island, separated from Iran only by a narrow strip of Iraqi territory, using a rented fishing boat.
In one of the most closely watched appointments, Mohsen Rezaei, who led the IRGC during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, was appointed as Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), the highest decision-making body, serving as Khamenei's representative. It was this council that halted progress in negotiations for the gradual opening of the Strait of Hormuz last week.
Khamenei also recalled his confidant Hossein Taeb, who led the crackdown on protests in 2009, to head the Basij militia organization, and tasked him with transforming this volunteer force into a "civilian intelligence network"—amid the backdrop that two wars had exposed serious problems of large-scale Israeli intelligence infiltration within Iran.
To unify military command, Khamenei appointed IRGC senior commander Brigadier General Ali Abdollahi to oversee both the IRGC and the regular army military systems. This individual has long actively advocated strikes against Arab countries hosting US military bases around the Persian Gulf. In the appointment decree for the new IRGC Commander-in-Chief, Ahmad Vahidi, he was explicitly ordered to carry out "forceful offensive operations against the enemy." His advisor, Mohammad Reza Naghdi, stated the next day that the IRGC must be prepared to advance operations into enemy territory.
Saeid Golkar, an Iran security affairs expert at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, commented: "Vahidi's promotion perfectly aligns with the logic of a leadership that is preparing for a period of sustained confrontation, not a return to normal politics."
Diplomatic efforts have not ceased entirely, but face significant obstacles. According to mediators involved in the negotiations, Iranian diplomats reached an agreement with Oman earlier this month on establishing and monitoring a navigation corridor within the Strait of Hormuz to gradually promote reopening the strait, but the IRGC immediately halted the arrangements and resumed attacks on vessels instead.
Regarding the latest diplomatic developments, according to the Global Times, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Baghaei announced on August 15 that Iran and Oman have reached an agreement on a passage plan for the Strait of Hormuz, and emphasized that the US had obstructed the consultation process. However, he simultaneously drew a clear line: this move is separate from the comprehensive reopening of the strait; whether it reopens depends on the US fulfilling relevant conditions. Just the day before, Trump had threatened to "soon declare the Strait of Hormuz as US territory," to which Iran immediately retorted that such remarks were "entirely born of his personal delusions."
Faced with the negotiation deadlock, Trump has chosen to step back and wait, hoping that sanctions pressure and naval blockades will soften Iran's stance. But Iran's leadership is accelerating its pivot toward a "resistance economy" model, focused on long-term attrition.
Mehdi Mohammadi, strategic advisor to Iran's chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, described the current deadlock this week as "the calm before the storm," and stated that one factor driving the ongoing conflict is a "cross-generational vengeance project" for the potential killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in the first round of a war. "The Iranian nation still has much unfinished business with Trump," Mohammadi said. "Iran is prepared for a major showdown."
Mohammad Hassan Sangtarash, a researcher at the School of International Studies at Peking University and an observer of Tehran affairs, pointed out:
"There is a widespread perception within Iran that the main war hasn't truly begun yet. Everything that has happened so far is increasingly interpreted as a tactic of 'boiling the frog slowly'—limited, incremental escalation aimed at exhausting the opponent's capabilities and paving the way for larger-scale confrontation."
Alan Eyre, a former senior US diplomat and Iran nuclear negotiator, offered a succinct and blunt assessment: "For this regime, war is the baseline state. Iran will maintain a wartime posture, preparing for the next round of strikes."
