Hey everyone, this is Senior Editor Will Kaback, wishing you a happy Thursday. It’s a short week for us at Tangle: We observe all bank holidays, and tomorrow is Juneteenth, so we won’t be sending a Friday edition. But if you’re interested in getting an on-the-ground perspective of people’s thoughts about the holiday — or how it came to be — check out this video we produced for our YouTube channel in 2024, featuring Isaac in his element on the streets of Philadelphia. 

We’ve certainly got a ways to go until the long weekend, though. The past few days have been dominated by news of a preliminary agreement to end the Iran war, and yesterday brought the release of the full memorandum of understanding signed by the U.S. and Iran. Today, we’ll break down what’s in the agreement, and I’ll share my thoughts on why it’s caused a furor on both sides of the political spectrum. Stick around for an update on aviation safety and our now-regular feature on the stories we didn’t cover this week. 

It’ll be a 14-minute edition; let’s get into it.

The Father’s Day episode.

In a special Father’s Day edition of Suspension of the Rules, Isaac, Ari, and Kmele are joined on the podcast by two guests: Executive Producer Jon Lall and Isaac’s father (and Tangle editor) Bailey Saul. The five of them represent different phases of fatherhood — from soon-to-be father to dad of two school-aged children to three-kid veteran (and grandfather) — and discuss what they’ve learned through their separate experiences. You can listen to the special edition here.

Quick hits.

1. The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) voted unanimously to keep interest rates unchanged at 3.5%–3.75% in Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh’s first FOMC meeting as chair. Nine policymakers signaled that they expect at least one interest rate increase in 2026. (The vote)
2. The Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the government cannot prosecute individuals for illegal gun possession solely because they are recreational cannabis users. (The ruling)
3. Republican lawmakers in Georgia opted not to pursue redrawing the state’s Congressional map for the 2028 elections, though they said they may revisit the plan at a later date. (The decision)
4. The U.S. Southern ​Command said that it struck a boat allegedly operated by “designated terrorist organizations” in the Eastern Pacific, killing one but leaving two survivors. The Coast Guard was notified for search-and-rescue operations. (The strike)
5. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the Pentagon will review the U.S. military’s presence in Europe and could reduce its contributions to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization if other member states do not meet their defense-spending obligations. (The remarks)

Today’s topic.

The Iran deal. On Wednesday, both the United States and Iran remotely signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to end the war between the two countries after more than 100 days of conflict. The White House also announced the details of the 14-point plan, which included calls for the U.S. and Iran to allow passage through the Strait of Hormuz and commits the United States to facilitating a $300 billion reconstruction fund for Iran.

Back up: The U.S. and Israel launched a coordinated military campaign against Iran on February 28, 2026. After more than five weeks of fighting, the two sides agreed to a ceasefire on April 7. In the months since, the U.S. and Iran have each conducted sporadic military operations, including exchanging airstrikes last week after an Iranian drone hit a U.S. helicopter. President Donald Trump had previously announced the agreement on Sunday, calling it a “great deal” before heading to the G7 Summit in Évian-les-Bains, France. 

What’s in it: The deal includes 14 individual items. For trade, Iran will immediately open the Strait of Hormuz without tolls for 60 days, with shipping volumes returning to pre-war levels within 30 days, and the U.S. will lift its naval blockade in parallel. On Iran’s nuclear program, Iran reaffirms it will not pursue a nuclear weapon while the U.S. agrees not to impose new sanctions or deploy additional forces in the region pending a final deal. For oil production, the U.S. agrees to allow Iran to resume exports of crude oil and petroleum products and unfreeze Iran’s assets. 

The U.S. will also develop a $300 billion reconstruction project in cooperation with unspecified regional partners in the Middle East. Separately, the MOU states that the ceasefire will extend to Lebanon, although Israel has said that the deal will not obligate it to pull its forces out of the country. Israel conducted air strikes on Lebanon yesterday, killing at least three people.

President Trump has described the deal as achieving “99.9 percent” of his goal of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, pointing to Iran’s reaffirmation in the MOU that it will not produce one. Iran has confirmed the details of the plan, but Iranian spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei emphasized Lebanon’s “sovereignty and territorial integrity” were integral to the deal.

After the details were released, many U.S. legislators were critical. “We get a deal that just reopens the strait that was already open before he started the war? How is that a win?” said Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA). “History teaches that giving billions of dollars to theocratic lunatics who want to murder us is a bad idea,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said.

Today, we’ll share arguments from the left and right, followed by Senior Editor Will Kaback’s take.

What the left is saying.

• The left calls the deal a failure, with many saying it will define Trump’s legacy.
• Some criticize Trump for forsaking his promise to the Iranian people. 
• Others argue the deal heralds a shift in the world order. 

In The Nation, David Faris called the deal “total humiliation for Trump.”

“[The deal] represents a humiliating strategic defeat and immediately ends the Islamic Republic’s long international isolation with virtually no concessions from Tehran whatsoever,” Faris wrote. “While U.S. officials failed to broker any serious linkage between Iran’s nuclear program and aid resumption, Tehran achieved a linkage breakthrough of its own: Iranian negotiators tied the negotiating window to stopping Israel’s reckless bombing attacks in Lebanon.” 

“Once Iran succeeded in keeping the Strait of Hormuz closed with minimal effort, and once the US gave up on any attempt to force it open with history’s most powerful navy, Tehran realized it held all the cards,” Faris said. “Shielded from military reprisals and with a promise from the United States to ‘respect each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and to refrain from interfering in each other’s internal affairs,’ Iran is now well on the road to regional hegemony… [Trump will] now have to live with the reality that, for all of the horrific, long-term damage he has inflicted on the United States and its political system, the debacle in Iran may be the humiliating foundation of his legacy.”

In MS NOW, Holly Dagres said Trump “abandoned [the Iranian] cause.”

“Anti-regime Iranians have been on an emotional roller coaster for months. Protests that began in late December turned into a bloody January uprising in which security forces killed thousands of civilians. President Donald Trump urged the Iranian people on Jan. 13 to keep protesting, promising that ‘help is on its way,’” Dagres wrote. “Meanwhile, they watched as U.S. officials negotiated with the regime that had slaughtered fellow Iranians, including children, and even said they would be honored to meet those leaders.”

“As the conflict continued, Iran’s civilian infrastructure has been increasingly damaged — not just the accidental U.S. strike on an elementary school in Minab, but also, more recently, drinking-water structures… The economic consequences for Iranians have also been severe. The conflict is estimated to have cost at least one million Iranian jobs,” Dagres said. “The war and the broader U.S. treatment of Iran issues have left many in and outside Iran wondering whether the U.S. remains committed to supporting the Iranian people at all.”

In Bloomberg, Andreas Kluth said “America’s loss to Iran will unravel geopolitics.”

“For the world as a whole, the ramifications of this stalemate will be just as large,” Kluth wrote. “America’s war against Iran differs from Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, but the two conflicts have this in common: In each case, the president of an erstwhile superpower attacked a second-rate power and failed to defeat it… One result is that America and Russia, in different ways, will come out of their wars of choice exhausted and diminished.”

“A third power, China, has of course been watching this slow but accelerating self-sabotage by America and Russia. And its leader, Xi Jinping, is seeing his assumptions confirmed,” Kluth said. “One is that Moscow will be no more than a junior partner to Beijing, useful in balancing against the US but no match in any non-nuclear arena of power — economic, technological, political. Another is that America is in a secular decline, which will leave China stronger as long as it conserves its own resources.”

What the right is saying.

• The right is mixed, though many suggest Trump lost out in the deal. 
• Some say the deal allows the U.S. to adjust its Middle East strategy.
• Others predict Vice President Vance will take the fall if the deal falls through. 

The New York Post editorial board said the deal “gives the Islamic Republic big wins up front — and America nothing.”

“As best we can tell, the deal does nothing to achieve the aims America started the war with — but does hand Tehran a whole series of gains,” the board wrote. “Iran gets at least a few billion in immediate funds and can start selling oil right away, with at least some other sanctions dropped as well. Moreover, Tehran wins unprecedented authority over the Strait of Hormuz and likely locks in Hezbollah’s dominance of Lebanon. Recall our goals: The prez opened combat seeking to permanently end Iran’s nuclear threat, and also eliminate its missiles and other offensive capabilities, and we also hoped for regime change.” 

“The bombing set back [Iran’s] nuke programs, took out a lot of missiles and missile factories and decapitated most of the regime’s top leadership. All the talks since the start of April have done nothing more — indeed, have only let new Iranian leaders rebuild and regroup, even as the populace suffers,” the board said. “It seems to us that Team Trump doesn’t want to use force to open the strait, it’s panicking over oil prices and the midterms and just wants to forget its promises to help the Iranian people.”

In The American Conservative, Eldar Mamedov suggested the deal “could help transform America’s mideast strategy.”

“The deal… has far wider geopolitical ramifications than a transactional ceasefire. That is because it reveals the limits of American power and opens a path to a long-overdue U.S. strategic recalibration in the Middle East,” Mamedov wrote. “This outcome need not be seen as catastrophic. It can instead produce a realistic reassessment of American presence and partnerships in the Middle East.”

“The strategic opportunity is now visible. The deal allows the United States to do what it should have done a decade ago: recalibrate its regional posture downward while ensuring that no single power — Iranian, Saudi, Turkish, or Israeli — dominates the Gulf,” Mamedov said. “The primary responsibility for regional security would likely shift to an alignment of regional powers... These states have the economic weight, military capacity, and diplomatic relationships with Tehran to manage the regional frameworks without direct American combat involvement.”

In The Spectator, Freddy Gray asked “will the Iran deal destroy J.D. Vance?”

“Both Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, though keen to show their commitment to Trump’s agenda, have tried to distance themselves from his unpopular war and its ramifications on their presidential ambitions,” Gray wrote. “The difference is that Rubio has privately expressed reservations about negotiating with the Iranians, whereas Vance has become the frontman of the ongoing peace process. This week, he has appeared on almost every American news channel, selling the MOU as Iran’s last chance to come in from the diplomatic cold.”

“If the deal collapses, or is widely seen as a humiliation for America, Vance will be dismissed as a foreign-policy dunce. It’s notable that the odds on him becoming the next Republican presidential nominee are lengthening, while Rubio’s have shortened. Sources close to Vance have let it be known he is now considering not running in 2028,” Gray said. “[Trump’s] war seems destined to force a painful reckoning over America’s relationship with its closest ally in the Middle East. And Vance or Rubio may well have to deal with that.”

My take.

Reminder: “My take” is a section where we give ourselves space to share a personal opinion. If you have feedback, criticism or compliments, don't unsubscribe. Write in by replying to this email, or leave a comment.

• If the MOU holds, the U.S. will have achieved none of its core objectives in this war.
• Trump appears to be backing down in a way he hasn’t before. 
• Iran is poised to emerge from this war emboldened and more powerful.

Senior Editor Will Kaback: I don’t know about you, but my head is spinning after the past week. Trying to parse the tonal shifts, contradictory messaging, and lack of transparency from the Trump administration about peace negotiations with Iran has felt like solving 10 jigsaw puzzles whose pieces are mixed up together in a single box. Now, finally, we have access to the text of a memorandum of understanding (MOU), which is not actually a deal but a starting point for negotiations on a lasting deal that could still fall apart if those future discussions stall. 

Okay, my head is still spinning. 

For some time now, the administration has clearly been drifting away from its goals in Iran. They communicated those goals in contradictory and uncertain terms at the beginning of the conflict, but they eventually landed on a core set of objectives: destroy Iran’s missile arsenal, destroy its navy, ensure it can never obtain a nuclear weapon, and end the threat posed by its proxies in the Middle East. 

On the first count, the United States credibly degraded a significant portion of Iran’s missile arsenal, especially early on. However, based on reporting from several outlets in the past month, Iran’s stockpile is currently about 70% of its pre-war level. The U.S. government denied these reports, but it hasn’t publicly issued its own assessment. The MOU says nothing about the arsenal, either, and Trump himself suggested on Wednesday that it would be “unfair” for Iran not to have some missiles. 

On the second count, the administration met its goal in technical terms, as Iran’s navy was severely hampered within two weeks of the war’s start. Tactically, however, this achievement hasn’t been meaningful; Iran was able to leverage the Strait of Hormuz by mining the waterway, a move that could continue to disrupt shipping even after the war formally ends. Despite the naval losses, Iran’s “mosquito fleets” — small, unconventional military flotillas — have continued to wreak havoc in the strait, using a kind of marine guerrilla warfare to disrupt traffic as they please.

Third, the fate of Iran’s nuclear program — ostensibly the core issue of this war — is uncertain, but we are a long way off from the complete “obliteration” President Trump claimed last year’s U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities already achieved. After the war began in February, the administration told us time and again that eliminating Iran’s nuclear threat was an absolute priority. But has the war brought that goal any closer? The MOU amounts to a promise that Iran will not “procure or develop” nuclear weapons, hardly binding and hardly reassuring. The president even undermined this position on Wednesday, implying it isn’t fair that Iran’s neighbors can possess enriched uranium when Iran can’t.

Finally, Iran-backed groups — particularly Hamas and Hezbollah — remain active in the region. While fighting in Gaza has declined, Hamas has not disarmed, and reporting from this week indicates that it doesn’t plan to. Separately, the MOU explicitly states that military activity will cease on all fronts, including Lebanon, where Israel has continued carrying out airstrikes targeting Hezbollah. The text of the agreement notably highlights the “territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon,” which feels like a clear warning to Israel to stand down, especially when paired with Trump’s recent comments criticizing Israel’s airstrikes. Meanwhile, the Houthis, another armed group backed by Iran, threatened last week to attack Israeli ships in the Red Sea. 

Considering the U.S. position at the start of the war, these developments boggle the mind. It’s not hyperbole to say that President Trump has backed off from or completely reversed his position on all of the core issues he used to justify attacking Iran. But that’s not all. The MOU confirms reports that the U.S. will help develop a $300 billion reconstruction fund for Iran, unfreeze its assets, and allow it to immediately resume exporting oil — despite the State Department reportedly telling Congress on Tuesday that Iran uses these oil exports to fund terrorism. And the deal will eventually roll back all U.S. sanctions against Iran. In return, Iran will employ its “best efforts” to allow ships to transit the Strait of Hormuz without a toll for 60 days — in other words, the pre-war status quo, except the strait is now full of mines and Iran could start charging a fee later. 

These lopsided terms have triggered a remarkable deluge of criticism from the president’s hawkish supporters in the media and Congress. Fox News’s Trey Gowdy said, “We had total control over that country… When you’re in that position, you negotiate from strength. You don’t give people money.” The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro called it a “disaster.” And commentator Batya Ungar-Sargon wrote, “The greatest superpower to ever exist brought to its knees by a few mines. Just a disaster for America.” 

These criticisms underscore a larger point: Throughout President Trump’s second term, his core agenda items have all stalled. The Supreme Court struck the “reciprocal tariffs” down. The deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis forced leadership changes in immigration enforcement, and deportation numbers continue to lag behind the president’s lofty goal. Now, the Iran war has derailed his foreign policy. Trump has still found avenues through which to enact tariffs and carry out deportations — the administration has pursued alternate legal routes to impose duties and recently locked in $70 billion in funding for ICE and CBP through Congress’s reconciliation bill — but in this war, he’s waving the white flag and backing off rather meekly.

Consider just a few of his comments at the G7 Summit in France yesterday. “The alternative [to this deal] would be a worldwide depression,” he said. “We have taken a lot of [Iran’s] money… It’s not our money, it’s their money, and we froze it. At a certain point in time, I guess we’re going to have to give it back,” he said. “[Without this deal,] we run out of [oil] reserves at about 4 weeks,” he said. “The one thing I didn’t want to see is… economic catastrophe. If you kept this going, that could have happened,” he said. At the start of the war, pointing out the economic risks was a common talking point from the left. Now, the president himself has adopted that talking point — about a war he started. 

These admissions suggest Iran will carry substantial leverage into the next stage of negotiations, and they lay bare the administration’s lack of a coherent war strategy. Make no mistake: Iran’s restriction of the Strait of Hormuz was the decisive move of this conflict, one we did not appear prepared for or capable of countering (despite the administration insisting otherwise). 

Of course, the war is not necessarily over. Future negotiations could fall apart, and the U.S. could resume its attacks in some form. As our own Managing Editor Ari Weitzman noted on Monday, the MOU doesn’t resolve the conditions of the conflict, which implies the conflict may persist. But without the ability to control movement through the strait, we’ll just be back in the same place we are today, no matter how many Iranian leaders we kill or how many military sites we destroy. No masterstroke is coming; the Trump administration is just boxed in. 

As someone who doubted the justifications for this war from the start and felt its execution has been haphazard, I admit to feeling some schadenfreude at this outcome, particularly after the degree of bluster about our path to overwhelming victory in the first few weeks (and Trump’s confidence that he could easily negotiate an Iran deal superior to the Obama administration’s). But then I remember the U.S. servicemembers killed in the conflict and the many others wounded. I remember the Iranian civilians killed, including more than 100 schoolchildren in what was almost certainly an errant U.S. missile strike. I remember that the Iranian regime — a repressive and violent government that murders its own people and thirsts for the destruction of the United States — is on the verge of emerging from this war richer and more influential in the Middle East. If the war is indeed over, I’ll be relieved, but I find little to take solace in beyond that. What was this all for? 

Cynicism aside, we should be clear on one thing: If this MOU is indeed the beginning of the end of this war, then the war was a failure for the United States. We have not achieved our goals, and our adversary is likely to emerge from the conflict stronger than before. The costs — in lives and dollars — have been high, and we haven’t even begun the now-planned reconstruction. The world is a more dangerous, unstable place than it was before February 28. And in all likelihood, the U.S. taxpayer will be left picking up the pieces and footing the bill for this administration’s mistakes long after President Trump’s term is over. 

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Note to self.

Update: On January 29, 2025, the deadliest air crash in the United States since November 2001 occurred when an Army Black Hawk helicopter carrying three soldiers collided with an American Airlines plane carrying 60 passengers and four crew members over the Potomac River. Senior Editor Will Kaback wrote a Friday edition looking into the state of aviation safety at the time, and our team set a calendar reminder for this week to look back on any major industry changes since then.

First, the January crash was not the last of negative headlines for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in 2025. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cuts created concerns about short-staffing across departments starting in February, and reports of chaos at Newark Liberty International Airport’s ATC first went public in May. 

Then, the government responded. The One Big Beautiful Bill passed by Congress in July put more than $12 billion toward ATC modernization, and the FAA expected to obligate about half of that by the end of fiscal year 2026. In February of this year, Congress passed legislation to fund the hiring of 2,500 new air traffic controllers, 54 additional aviation safety inspectors, and $4 billion to maintain and upgrade ATC infrastructure nationwide. It also blocked any effort to privatize the ATC system. In April, the House passed the ALERT Act to improve the country’s Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast; the bill passed after a rival piece of legislation, the ROTOR Act, was voted down in the House (despite passing the Senate unanimously with more industry support). The differences between these acts are complicated, and you can read more about them here.

The bottom line changes are this: The FAA has so far hired above its goal, but years of training still remain before the industry can be considered fully staffed. All in all, the latest investments in the airline industry have not yet resulted in any noticeable improvement in the safety data.

Under the radar.

On Monday, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ordered Angela Perryman, one of the American passengers linked to a cruise-ship outbreak of hantavirus last month, to remain in quarantine at a Nebraska facility despite her requests to leave. Kennedy’s decision also conflicted with a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) review that said Perryman should be allowed to quarantine at home in Florida, where she lives part time. An HHS spokesperson called Kennedy’s order “necessary,” citing “the absence of proper home monitoring” by Florida, which has reportedly refused to meet the Trump administration’s requested 24/7 surveillance requirements. “I’m in a room 23, 24 hours a day,” Perryman said. “It does not serve public health.” The Wall Street Journal has the story.

The road not taken.

We briefly considered a few stories that are still developing to cover this week: California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) claim that he is being investigated by the DOJ, the G7 meeting in France, the FISA and SAVE America Act negotiations in Congress, and the hold placed on Anthropic’s release of its latest AI models. However, as those topics are unfolding, we felt covering them now would be premature. 

We wouldn’t normally cover the same topic twice in one week, but the flurry of updates on Iran pushed us to cover both the events leading up to the announcement of a coming MOU as well as the MOU itself. The biggest upside of that choice is that we get to go deep on the topic, but another is that we have a menu of items we’re keeping tabs on as we head into the three-day weekend.

The extras.

• One year ago today we wrote about political violence in Minnesota.
• The most clicked link in our last regular newsletter was the article about Phoebe Bridgers banning phones from her concerts.
• Nothing to do with politics: Announcing the world’s longest tiramisu.
• Our last survey: 1,675 readers responded to our survey on the effect of social media bans on teens with 50% saying bans will make teens moderately happier and healthier. “It’s already happening in Australia... kids are finding their ways around the ban,” one respondent said. “Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good. Sure, kids can access alcohol, but fewer do with a ban in place,” said another.

Have a nice day.

After discovering he had a hereditary condition affecting his lungs and liver, Pete McKee received a liver transplant in 2017 that saved his life. This year McKee, an artist in Sheffield, England, designed new organ-donor cards for a limited-edition run to help encourage people to register. The designs include symbols connected to Sheffield, like a steelworker pouring molten metal into a heart-shaped cask. Mark Piotr was the man who donated his liver to McKee, and his wife, Karen Piotr, recalled the moment he decided to become a donor. They were donating blood, and Mark said, “They’ve had a pint of my Yorkshire finest, if anything ever happens, they can just have the lot!” BBC has the story.