The missing half of mediation
The memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the United States and Iran, signed on June 17, briefly appeared to have achieved what weeks of military confrontation
The memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the United States and Iran, signed on June 17, briefly appeared to have achieved what weeks of military confrontation had not. It extended the ceasefire, reopened a path back to negotiations and offered the prospect of restoring stability to one of the world’s most strategically important regions. The early indicators were encouraging. Commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, which carries roughly a fifth of global oil trade, began to recover. Oil flows rose markedly, while Iranian exports more than doubled from their wartime low under a temporary sanctions waiver. About 340 commercial vessels passed through the Strait during the week of 22–28 June, making it the busiest period since hostilities began on February 28. For a brief moment, diplomacy appeared to be succeeding. Within weeks, however, ships were disappearing from the strait again, military exchanges had resumed and mediators were seeking another temporary truce, simply to rescue the original agreement. What had looked like a diplomatic breakthrough rapidly became another fragile ceasefire. Its rapid unravelling exposed the missing half of the mediation process: the parties had agreed on a political text, but not on the mechanisms needed to implement it, while the states that brokered the agreement lacked the leverage to make it stick. Part of the problem was that the signing of the agreement had been treated as the culmination of mediation rather than the beginning of its most demanding phase. The US and the mediators appear to have focused on securing a mutually acceptable political text. Success was measured by signatures and public declarations, with too little attention paid to the challenges that inevitably arise once governments, militaries, regulators, banks, insurers, shipping companies and regional allies begin to put an agreement into practice. Questions of interpretation, sequencing, verification, dispute resolution and confidence-building were largely deferred rather than resolved. Like many ceasefire arrangements, the June MoU relied heavily on constructive ambiguity.
This was understandable. Both Washington and Tehran needed sufficient political flexibility to present the agreement as a victory to domestic audiences while leaving difficult issues unresolved. Such ambiguity can allow diplomacy to move forward when complete agreement is impossible. But ambiguity is useful only when clear mechanisms exist to manage what remains unresolved. Otherwise, disagreements simply migrate from the negotiating table into the implementation phase, where trust is lower and the political costs of failure are considerably higher. The MoU referred to maintaining a nuclear “status quo” without defining which activities were permitted or prohibited. It envisaged sanctions relief without specifying which restrictions would be suspended, under what legal authority or on what timetable. It also referred to frozen Iranian assets without establishing how those funds would be released, controlled or monitored. Public discussion suggested that approximately $12bn might eventually become available, yet disagreements quickly emerged over whether the funds would remain in supervised escrow accounts or come under unrestricted Iranian control. The same weakness was evident in the maritime provisions. The agreement required Iran to “make arrangements using its best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels” and to engage in dialogue with the Sultanate of Oman to define the future administration and maritime services of the Strait of Hormuz “in line with applicable international law and the sovereign rights of the coastal states of the Strait of Hormuz”. Yet it established no agreed framework governing navigation, maritime security, inspection procedures, routing arrangements or dispute resolution. The language also allowed Tehran to interpret the agreement as recognising a future role in administering the strait. Commercial traffic initially recovered because markets responded positively to the ceasefire announcement. Confidence, however, remained fragile because the institutional arrangements needed to sustain normal shipping had never been agreed. Although Washington committed to a temporary 60-day sanctions waiver covering limited oil sales, banking, insurance and shipping activities, many insurers, refiners and shipping companies remained cautious.
The BriefWire