President Trump’s Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Iran avoids the obvious question: why trade away unprecedented leverage after unprecedented military success?

Over the past three years, the United States and Israel have inflicted more nuclear, economic, and military damage on the Islamic Republic and its terror proxies than at any point since the regime seized power in 1979.

The regime that stood at the height of its regional power on October 7, 2023, when its Hamas proxy unleashed a bestial massacre in Israel, now finds itself weaker and more vulnerable than at any time in its history.

A combination of economic pressure, military force, intelligence operations, and the extraordinary performance of American and Israeli servicemen, intelligence officers, and policymakers brought the regime to its knees.

Americans are therefore entitled to ask whether the Trump administration is about to surrender a significant portion of its leverage before the hardest phase of negotiations has even begun.

A decade ago, the Obama administration bet that sanctions relief and diplomatic engagement could moderate the Islamic Republic. Instead, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) delivered massive sanctions relief while putting Iran on a pathway to nuclear weapons as restrictions expired. Tehran used the windfall to expand its missile and drone programs, strengthen its terrorist proxies, and threaten the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in the Red Sea, two waterways key to the free flow of energy.

President Trump withdrew from that fatally flawed agreement and, working with Israel, built unprecedented leverage against the regime. Even when Tehran played the Hormuz card at its weakest moment, the U.S. military began quietly reopening the strait and moved millions of barrels of oil per day. Saudi and Emirati overland pipelines moved millions more.

That’s why the emerging details of the new MOU are so troubling.

The agreement may allow Iran to immediately increase energy sales while potentially receiving relief from the banking and transportation sanctions that facilitate those transactions.

If so, the administration would be trading away one of America’s most effective sources of pressure before final negotiations — intended to strip Iran of its remaining nuclear weapon capabilities — even begin.

The MOU could amount to a $25 billion toll payment to Tehran from oil sales, to keep the Strait of Hormuz open through the midterm elections.

The administration may argue that such relief is limited, reversible, and necessary to stabilize global energy markets.

Yet the burning questions remain.

How much of that money can be repatriated? How can the regime use those funds? What restrictions remain on financial transactions? Will the administration stop enforcing existing sanctions?

Most importantly, how much damage will be done to the sanctions architecture that took years to build?

Tehran could also gain access to tens of billions of dollars in additional oil revenue and portions of the roughly $100 billion in Iranian funds frozen abroad. That would be a massive windfall.

If the MOU includes broad waivers covering banking and transportation transactions, that would represent far more than a narrow licensing arrangement. It would fracture the core architecture of American oil and financial sanctions.

Once the United States normalizes Iranian oil exports to major buyers such as China, India, and the United Arab Emirates, alongside the repatriation of oil revenues back to Tehran, the damage becomes difficult to reverse.

If companies, traders, insurers, shipping firms, banks, and governments become accustomed to doing business with Iran again, restoring today’s pressure campaign would take years, not weeks — precisely why sanctions relief should come at the end of successful negotiations, not at the beginning.

And prematurely weakening this leverage will make it even more difficult to secure the final nuclear agreement with Iran that the MOU is supposedly designed to deliver.

The regime has played this game successfully against multiple American presidents. Indeed, the only arena in which the Islamic Republic has consistently defeated the United States is at the negotiating table.

President Trump argued he still retains the military option. But leverage erodes. Deployments end, Washington’s attention shifts, and Tehran may simply pocket economic concessions while waiting for pressure to dissipate or for a next president not willing to stop Iran.

If negotiations fail — as they likely will — the administration should be prepared immediately to restore maximum economic pressure, return to military operations including in Hormuz, and suffocate the regime’s remaining sources of power.

There is one final instrument that every administration has neglected.

The Iranian people.

Economic pressure and military power can weaken the regime. Only the Iranian people can ultimately end it.

Nothing can match the power of tens of millions of Iranians who despise the regime that rules them. No one has sacrificed more to challenge the Islamic Republic.

Despite enduring killings, incarceration, torture, corruption, and economic ruin, they continue to resist.

The truly decisive question is not how long the United States can pressure this regime.

It is whether America is finally prepared to help Iranians finish the job themselves.

President Trump should immediately instruct his intelligence services to build a plan. Call it Operation People’s Fury. And have it ready for when Iranians courageously return to the streets, as they have done repeatedly for decades.

***

Mark Dubowitz is chief executive of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the presenter of “The Iran Breakdown” podcast.

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