‘Let the oil flow!’: Can US and Iran actually strike lasting deal?

If Donald Trump calls it a peace deal, does that make it so? ‘Let the oil flow,’ trumpeted the US president after agreeing on the day of his 80th birthday to a memorandum of understanding with Iran. Trump quick to schedule a signing ceremony – this one next Friday in Switzerland, across from where he’s flown in for a G-Seven summit on the French side of Lake Geneva. We’ll ask what’s actually in the memorandum of understanding brokered by Pakistan and Qatar, and whether the uncertainty’s well and truly lifted for the world’s biggest maritime choke point. Will Iran continue to charge for passage? Will Gulf States pay the US protection money as Trump insinuated in a New York Times interview?  Are Europeans right to volunteer naval patrols? And what should those signatories of the 2015 UN-brokered nuclear agreement make of vague US promises of a new deal with Iran? Everything was done to accommodate the US. Host France even pushed back the G-Seven summit by a day so Trump could enjoy his birthday festivities in Washington. How accomodating should allies be going forward?

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