- Brève introduction
- United States-Iran Agreement: memorandum of understanding and reopening of the Strait of Hormuz
- Market reaction: stock market euphoria in Asia and collapse in oil prices
- Lebanon in the agreement: “permanent” ceasefire on paper, Hezbollah terrorism in practice
- Ukraine: the front freezes while diplomacy hibernates
- China, the great silent beneficiary of the Hormuz crisis
- Europe and its defense: from the collapse of FCAS to Spanish ambivalence towards the Ankara summit
- Medium rack
- Editorial
Brève introduction
The day which ended in the last twenty-four hours will be remembered as one of those turning points – discreet in form, seismic in substance – where a conflict which threatened to set the world economy on fire finds, not its solution, but a truce.
The announcement of a memorandum of understanding between the United States and the dictatorial and mafia oligarchy of Tehran, with the subsequent reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, was enough for the Asian markets to open the week in a state of euphoria and for the barrel of oil loosens the vice that has been strangling global growth for months. However, we should not confuse relief with victory: what was resolved was the Strait crisis, not the nuclear issue; what was agreed was a timetable, not an architecture.
This analyst has long described the Iranian episode as a textbook case of contained systemic fracture – one of those wars of variable intensity that no one can completely win or afford to lose – and nothing in the known text invites us to reconsider this diagnosis. The agreement defuses the energetic blackmail that the dictatorship of the ayatollahs had transformed into its last effective weapon, but leaves for a period of sixty days the most difficult to come.
Meanwhile, the Lebanese front remains the nerve center of the entire region, Ukraine is frozen in hopeless exhaustion, China is silently cashing in the dividends of the crisis and Europe – faithful to its myopia – is contemplating the evaporation of its sixth generation fighter program in the at the very moment when she would most need to take her own defense seriously. We report all this, with verified facts and uncompromising judgment, in the pages that follow.
United States-Iran Agreement: memorandum of understanding and reopening of the Strait of Hormuz
Do
On June 14, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif – the main mediator – announced that Washington and Tehran had finalized the text of a memorandum of understanding which will be signed on Friday June 19 during a ceremony in Switzerland. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi confirmed the finalization of the text; negotiators from the Emirate of Qatar traveled to Tehran and held seventeen hours of discussions to finalize the agreement. A few minutes after the announcement, President Trump announced the immediate lifting of the US naval blockade and authorized the “toll-free” reopening of the strait.
The fourteen-point project distributed by the Iranian agency Mehr provides for the immediate and permanent cessation of hostilities on all fronts – including in Lebanon –, the suspension of oil sanctions and part of the financial sanctions, the release of approximately 24 billion dollars of Iranian funds frozen, the reaffirmation by Tehran of its commitment not to produce nuclear weapons under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the presentation by the United States and its allies of reconstruction plans and a reduction in the American military presence in the region.
The next sixty days are reserved for the most thorny issues: enrichment, residual sanctions and resolutions from the Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency. Macron demanded the resumption of maritime traffic without restriction or toll as an essential condition for stability; Starmer offered to support technical discussions; The Emirate of Qatar welcomed the agreement as a step towards lasting peace.
Implications
We are facing a victory for crisis management, and not for strategic design. The American administration has achieved what it had set as its immediate objective – wresting from the dictatorship of the ayatollahs control of the choke point through which nearly 20% of the planet’s oil and liquefied natural gas pass. — and she did it, it must be recognized, when she acted with the prudence instilled in her by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and not when she allowed herself to be carried away by exuberance and improvised deadlines. But the agreement confirms our thesis: transactional foreign policy, guided more by intuition than by a plan, can end a crisis while leaving the problem unresolved.
Here we have gained time and given Tehran a breath of financial oxygen – 24 billion is not a trifle for a regime of cosmic corruption – in exchange for promises that can only be verified on paper. The paradox of decapitation continues to operate in all its crudeness: after the elimination of the leaders of the regime, the toughest survivors lack the ideological authority, hierarchical rank and dominant personality to impose themselves on their peers and have concessions accepted; it is not a paradox of moderation – there are no more moderates left – but of governance. Whoever signs on the 19th will have no guarantee of being able to respect what was signed.
Perspectives et scénarios
Scenario A (45%): the signature of the 19th materializes, the strait returns to normal in a few weeks and the sixty-day window results in an imperfect but operational nuclear framework.
Scenario B (40%): partial compliance – effective reopening of the strait, but stalled nuclear negotiations and a fragile agreement strewn with incidents and extensions, which is the outcome most consistent with the erratic nature of post-beheading Iranian power.
Scenario C (15%): An incident on the Lebanese front or a disgruntled faction of the Revolutionary Guard Corps derails the signing and sends the region back to square one. The cumulative probability that the strait remains operational in the medium term is high; that the nuclear question is truly resolved, weak.
Members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard – REUTERS/ DEATH NIKOUBAZ
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Market reaction: stock market euphoria in Asia and collapse in oil prices
Facts
The opening of Asian stock markets this Monday, June 15, translated the diplomatic relief into figures. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index rose about 5.5% in the early hours; South Korea’s Kospi gained as much as 5.7%; the Taiwanese Taiex rose by almost 2.7% and the Australian ASX 200 by around 1.5%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 1% before losing much of its momentum.
Futures contracts on the US S&P 500 and Nasdaq indices also rose outside of normal trading hours. Oil, which had reached heights not seen since 2022 during the crisis – with the barrel of Brent exceeding 100 dollars and the American reference close to 117 dollars in the most critical moments – fell sharply in the face of the prospect of a return of oil flows from the Gulf.
Implications
The collapse in the price of oil is, in macroeconomic terms, the most tangible news of the day for the average citizen. A sustained decline in oil prices dampens imported inflation, reopens the door to interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve and other central banks, and eases the accounts of major importers – from India to Spain itself.
However, we should not get carried away: what the markets anticipate (pricing in) is a scenario of respecting commitments, and the markets, like diplomacy, have a short memory. The geopolitical risk premium has not disappeared; she simply fell asleep, and it would take just one incident in Ormuz or in the Dahieh district of Beirut to wake her up with a start.
Perspectives et scénarios
Baseline scenario (60%): stabilization of Brent in a moderate range and continuation of the stock market recovery while the signature is finalized.
Relapse scenario (25%): a setback in implementation revives volatility and puts oil back on an upward trajectory.
Scenario of excessive downward reaction (15%): relief is overflowing and the market anticipates an overly optimistic normalization, exposing itself to a correction. The sum of the three scenarios covers all plausible outcomes.
Lebanon in the agreement: “permanent” ceasefire on paper, Hezbollah terrorism in practice
Facts
The draft memorandum expressly provides for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in military operations “on all fronts, including in Lebanon.” But the reality on the ground contradicts the text. On June 7 and again on June 14, Israeli aircraft bombed Dahieh – the southern suburbs of Beirut – in response to drone attacks carried out by the Hezbollah terrorist organization; the Iranian response was aborted at the last minute by Washington’s intervention so as not to derail the agreement.
During talks in early June in Washington, Israel and Lebanon agreed to a conditional ceasefire requiring a “complete cessation” of fire from Hezbollah; the terrorist organization, through its leader Naim Qassem, categorically rejected it and made any truce subject to the prior withdrawal of Israel from southern Lebanon. President Joseph Aoun described this framework as “a last chance”. The next Israeli-Lebanese discussions are scheduled for the week of June 22.
Implications
Allow me, for reasons that the reader of these reports knows, a word of personal caution: no region of the world is more dear or more painful to me than Lebanon, this martyr state whose tragedy I have followed closely all my life. And it is precisely for this reason that I insist on calling things by their names. Hezbollah is neither a “militia” nor a “resistance group”: it is a terrorist organization, the armed wing and proxy of the dictatorial and mafia oligarchy of Tehran, and each of its members is a terrorist.
The Lebanese clause of the agreement is, on paper, its most ambitious element and, on the ground, its weakest link: it presupposes that Tehran can order its agent what the latter refuses to accept as long as Israel occupies positions in the south. This is where the weak point of the entire architecture lies. The fact that Hezbollah did not take part in the discussions and rejects their outcome makes Lebanon the most likely scene of a relapse.
Perspectives et scénarios
Supervised containment scenario (50%): the combined pressure from Washington, Tehran – now eager to take advantage of the thaw – and the Lebanese state maintains a precarious calm, punctuated by sporadic violations.
Localized relapse scenario (35%): a new exchange of fire in Dahieh or at the border breaks the ceasefire without involving the entire region.
Scenario for reopening the front (15%): the refusal of the terrorist organization and an Israeli miscalculation relaunch open war. The total is 100%.
Ukraine: the front freezes while diplomacy hibernates
Facts
While global attention was focused on the Middle East, Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine continued its bloody course. The Ukrainian General Staff put the number of clashes recorded until the evening of June 14 at around 118, with the Pokrovsk and Huliaipole axes being the hottest. A Russian attack on Kharkiv burned the city’s art museum and injured several people; In Dnipro, the death toll from a previous bombardment rose to seventeen dead.
At the same time, long-range Ukrainian attacks continued to hit the Russian energy rearguard, with the Kubyshev refinery among the targets hit. Independent assessments agree on a diagnosis: Russia retains its attack capacity, but it is finding it increasingly difficult to transform its tactical gains into operational successes. The truces envisaged in the spring – that of Orthodox Easter in April, that of “Victory Day” in May – did not lead to any armistice.
Implications
Ukraine illustrates the other side of wars of variable intensity: a conflict that no one knows how to win anymore and that neither party can afford to lose, bogging down in an impasse of attrition. The immediate risk for kyiv is not military, but attention: that the thaw in the Gulf diverts diplomatic attention and eases pressure on the Kremlin at the very moment when the Russian front is showing signs of fatigue.
Our position is the same as always and does not tolerate any shade of complacency: we are unreservedly opposed to Russian aggression and the use of force as a means of acquiring territories, and only moderately critical of the US administration regarding its attitude towards Moscow, confident that the reason of those around the president will ultimately prevail over the temptation of transaction.
Perspectives et scénarios
Scenario of continued attrition (60%): the front remains frozen during the summer, without decisive progress or serious negotiations.
Scenario of renewed diplomatic pressure (25%): the success in Hormuz encourages Washington to relaunch mediation, with uncertain results.
Russian escalation scenario (15%): Moscow takes advantage of the global distraction to launch a concentrated offensive. These three outcomes exhaust the spectrum of possibilities.
China, the great silent beneficiary of the Hormuz crisis
Facts
The rise in Asian stock markets has had its epicenter in an Asia breathing with relief, and no one is breathing with more concealment than Beijing. Throughout the crisis, China – the world’s largest importer of crude oil – has demonstrated remarkable energy resilience: only around 10% of its oil now passes through Hormuz, thanks to a network of onshore pipelines and a portfolio diversified with around fifty suppliers.
At the mid-May summit in Beijing, President Xi Jinping pledged to Trump to buy more American oil and not to supply military equipment to Iran. Chinese diplomacy repeated its mantra – “the use of force is a dead end” – while avoiding getting involved in the reopening of the strait that Washington was demanding.
Implications
We must be particularly vigilant here, faithful to our reading of Chinese expansionism which progresses by subtraction as much as by presence. The so-called “Epic Fury” operation, designed as a show of force in front of the world, had an embarrassing side effect: as Ali Wyne of the International Crisis Group observed, it shattered the illusion of American omnipotence, showing that Washington could not reopen Hormuz alone and needed, if only only tacitly, from the collaboration of its main strategic competitor.
China has not moved a single ship and, yet, it has emerged strengthened: it confirms its multipolar discourse, improves its energy bill and offers itself the luxury of rhetorical equidistance. It’s the playbook of “small garden, high fence” applied in reverse – letting the rival exhaust itself in someone else’s yard while you armor your own. Russia and Iran are, for Beijing, transactional partners, never true allies; and it is precisely this coldness which allows him to win without playing.
Perspectives et scénarios
Consolidation of advantage scenario (55%): China capitalizes on the thaw, buys crude oil at low prices and deepens its penetration into the Gulf without incurring security costs.
Trade friction scenario (30%): the commitment to buy American oil comes up against tariff tensions and is only partially respected.
Scenario of reluctant involvement (15%): Beijing sees itself drawn into a guarantor role that it does not want. The total is one hundred.
Shanghai Stock Exchange Building, in the Pudong financial district, Shanghai, China – REUTERS/ ALY SONG
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Europe and its defense: from the collapse of FCAS to Spanish ambivalence towards the Ankara summit
Facts
The European setback of the day is as eloquent as it is depressing. On June 8, at the ILA air show in Berlin – the same place where the program was presented in 2018 – Chancellor Friedrich Merz certified the death of the Future Air Combat System, the Franco-German-Spanish fighter project. sixth generation valued at around 100 billion euros. Nine years and some 4 billion spent without a single aircraft having taken flight, buried by the governance conflict between Airbus and Dassault over the distribution of tasks and design direction.
This collapse also calls into question the MGCS battle tank program. Meanwhile, the rival GCAP program – United Kingdom, Italy and Japan – is moving forward, the United States is continuing its F-47 project and China has already flown two sixth-generation prototypes. On the eve of the NATO summit planned for Ankara in July, the Spanish government remains ambivalent: President Sánchez had written to Secretary General Rutte to describe the target of 5% of GDP as “unreasonable”, although Spanish defense spending has increased by 50% last year, exceeding the 2% threshold for the first time in three decades.
Implications
Here, condensed into a single file, is the criticism that I have been making for a long time against the mediocre and myopic European political class of the 21st century: incapable of taking its own defense, its security and its destiny seriously. That the continent’s largest strategic autonomy project is wrecked in a boardroom quarrel, at the very moment when Washington is reducing its presence in the Middle East and calling into question burden-sharing within the Alliance, is historical sarcasm.
Europe has never had so many reasons to cooperate on defense and has never shown so little desire to do so. The Spanish case conceals a particular inconsistency: a public posture of neutrality which borders on irresponsibility, more hostile to Washington than to real threats, coexisting with bases – Rota and Morón – fully operational in the security architecture Atlantic. We are not criticizing cooperation: we are criticizing the inconsistency between military reality and the discourse.
Perspectives et scénarios
Realignment scenario (50%): Spain and Germany move, belatedly and reluctantly, towards alternative formulas or towards GCAP, assuming technological dependence.
Paralysis scenario (35%): the vacuum continues without a replacement, weakening the European defense industrial base.
Scenario of galvanizing reaction (15%): the double whammy – American withdrawal and failure of the FCAS – finally stimulates a serious European initiative. The sum totals 100%.
Summary of the treatment reserved by the main international titles and analysis firms to the dominant news of the day – the agreement between the United States and the dictatorial and mafia oligarchy of Tehran and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz – as well as well as its Lebanese and European energy benefits.
The New York Times
He presents the memorandum as a tactical triumph of the policy of maximum pressure, but emphasizes that the essential – the nuclear program – is postponed for a period of sixty days without guarantee of verification.
The Wall Street Journal
Analysis of markets and energy: the reopening of the Strait as an anchor for global inflation and the monetary policy of the Federal Reserve.
The Washington Post
Emphasizes the fragility of the Lebanese front and the unknown of the “tomorrow”, recalling that the Iranian regime is weakened, but not defeated.
Financial Times
Sober analysis of the collapse in oil prices and the rebound in Asian indices; warns that the geopolitical risk premium does not disappear, it only falls asleep.
The Times / The Telegraph
They underline the role of Anglo-Saxon mediator and the British willingness to support technical discussions; tone of moderate relief.
The Guardian
He emphasizes the humanitarian cost in Lebanon and doubts about international legality; skeptical of the victory speech.
Le Monde / Le Figaro / Libération
Paris claims a leading role: Macron demands maritime transit without tolls and offers itself for the nuclear and ballistic aspect. Le Figaro rejoices; Liberation nuance.
FAZ / Die Welt / Die Zeit
The German press establishes a link between the American withdrawal, the European strategic vacuum and the recent collapse of the FCAS; self-criticism about dependence.
Corriere della Sera
Mediterranean and energy context; attention paid to the impact on prices and on the Vatican’s peace diplomacy.
L’Osservatore Romano
Welcomes the cessation of hostilities under the sign of reconciliation, in the wake of the message of Leo XIV during his recent trip to Spain.
Reuters/AP/AFP/DPA
Factual and chronological coverage: finalization of the text, signature planned in Switzerland on the 19th, lifting of the naval blockade and reopening of the strait.
Bloomberg / CNBC
Real-time data: Nikkei and Kospi soar, oil down, US futures up; focus on the Asian energy chain.
BBC / CNN / CBS
Relate the news with caution: the agreement “has been concluded” but “has not yet been signed”; recall deadlines not respected previously.
Fox News / Washington Times
Presentation of the outcome as a justification of the iron fist policy and presidential firmness; Praise to Marco Rubio as a careful craftsman.
Al Jazeera / Al Arabiya
Doha and Gulf media highlight Qatari mediation and imminent resumption of traffic; tone emphasizing the regional role.
Asharq Al-Awsat / Arab News / Al Riyadh
The Saudi press presents the agreement as a stabilization of the Gulf and an opportunity for reconstruction; she remains cautious about Tehran’s true intentions.
An-Nahar / The Orient-The Day
Beirut is experiencing this “permanent ceasefire” with wary hope: the text is promising, but the bombings on Dahieh are still fresh in memories.
The Peninsula / Gulf News / Times of Oman
Media in the Emirate of Qatar and the Gulf welcome the opening of the strait and the guarantee of freedom of navigation as a regional public good.
Jerusalem Post / Israel Hayom / Haaretz
Israel interprets the agreement with distrust: relief in the face of the Iranian front, concern in the face of the Lebanese clause and the persistence of the threat from Hezbollah.
Yedioth Ahronoth / Maariv
Internal debate over whether the ceasefire “on all fronts” ties the hands of the Defense Forces against the terrorist organization in southern Lebanon.
Russia Today / TASS / Vesti
Moscow puts American success into perspective and presents it as proof of a multipolar order; silence about its own losses in Ukraine.
Kyiv Independent / Ukrainska Pravda / Ukrinform
Fear that diplomatic attention to the Middle East will deprive Ukraine of attention and pressure on the Kremlin.
South China Morning Post / China Daily
Beijing minimizes its role and displays its “energy self-sufficiency”; presents the negotiation as confirmation that “the use of force is a dead end.”
The Times of India / WION / Hindustan Times
New Delhi welcomes the fall in the price of oil – vital for its balance of payments – and underlines Islamabad’s mediation with contained irony.
The Economist / Foreign Affairs / Newsweek / TIME
In-depth analysis: they distinguish between the end of the Strait crisis and the absence of sustainable architecture; they warn against the risk of “the next day”.
RUSSI / IISS / CSIS / IFRI / EIU
Strategic firms agree: victory for crisis management, not design; they emphasize China, the silent beneficiary, and European atrophy.
Editorial
Mirage of peace with Iran
There are days when diplomacy seems to prove the pessimists wrong, and June 14 was one of them. I will not be one of those who skimp on the recognition that should be given for having wrested control of the Strait of Hormuz from the dictatorial and mafia oligarchy of Tehran without the region completely burning down. But we should not let ourselves be dazzled by these fireworks, because what the world is celebrating as a historic agreement is not, strictly speaking, an agreement. This is not an agreement: it is an announcement in search of a signature – an announcement that its own authors describe in a contradictory manner and which will be initialed, if it is on the 19th in Switzerland, by a regime incapable of guaranteeing compliance. Five cracks run through the building from side to side, and it is worth reviewing them one by one.
The first is the most basic and the most devastating. It is not a theocracy that signs – it never was, and that is why we refuse to call it that –; it is a jihadist, dictatorial and mafia oligarchy which rents its consent for sixty days. After the beheading of the regime, there remains in Tehran no authority with the rank, ideological stature or dominant personality necessary to impose a concession on its peers and enforce it: this is the paradox of beheading in its purest form. And from there follows the obvious: a signature snatched from a headless oligarchy binds no one.
The second flaw is that there is not one agreement: there are two, and they contradict each other. What is presented to Washington as disarmament is sold to Tehran as a victory; what was announced as the dismantling of the nuclear program is only a promise to negotiate it later, postponed to a sixty day window which is, strictly speaking, a blank check. Let’s call a spade a spade: entrusting the fox with deactivating the henhouse is not arms control; it is laundering a threshold nuclear capability disguised as disarmament.
The third flaw is silences, which in diplomacy say more than clauses. The text ignores ballistic missiles – the sword that the regime will continue to sharpen –, ignores its status as the first state supporting terrorism and its proxies, and ignores the effective guarantee of passage through Hormuz, left to the good will of the one who made the strangulation of the strait his last weapon. What an agreement doesn’t say is often the only thing that really matters.
The fourth flaw lies in the sequence, designed the opposite of what it should be. Concessions precede counterparts, funds are released before anything is verified and there is no automatic reactivation of sanctions that would make non-compliance with commitments pay. Thus, the regime obtains the only commodity it has been looking for all along: time. Time to breathe, to recapitalize, to rearm and to wait for the West, faithful to its habits, to allow itself to be distracted.
And the fifth, which touches me closely and hurts me: we announce a regional peace without Israel and with Lebanon left to its fate. A regional peace without Israel and without automatic sanctions is a truce with an expiration date. And leaving intact the arsenal of Hezbollah – this terrorist organization which did not take part in the pact and which has already rejected it through the voice of its own leaders – is to hold hostage, in perpetuity, the Lebanese martyr state. No peace architecture can hold if it holds its weakest link hostage.
Let the results be clear, without triumphalism or defeatism. That the guns are silent is good news and no sectarianism should taint it. But we are not witnessing the end of a conflict, but its management; and the most likely path is not peace, but a coma induced by unrequited concessions – a freeze that each capital will hasten to present as a victory. This is why it is worth repeating, even if it is disturbing: let us not confuse the absence of bombs with the establishment of peace. What is signed this week in Switzerland is not the peace with Iran; it is, hardly, its mirage. We will remain vigilant.
