Time to Enforce the MOU With Iran

Iran has broken the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, attacking Gulf shipping, refusing to grant IAEA access to nuclear sites, and stating it will impose tolls on strait transits while angling for better terms. Its most important coercive weapon, an oil chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, has been dramatically weakened by the market. Washington should stop bargaining from a fear the market has already retired, reclaim what the deal surrendered, and defend the workarounds so Iran cannot rebuild the threat by force.

In international practice, when one party systematically violates its core obligations, the other is no longer expected to perform. Iran attacked ships within the 60-day free-passage window, denied IAEA access to the nuclear sites the war targeted, and is pre-selling Hormuz toll discounts to China before any final arrangement has been authorized. These are egregious breaches. The record is not just Iran’s past. It is the MOU’s future.

Iran’s decisive weapon was the threat to choke the Strait of Hormuz and crash the world economy. When the war began, Brent surged more than 55%, peaking near $126 in late April as the chokehold camp’s warnings appeared vindicated. But producers rerouted and pumped across the Atlantic Basin, tankers ran dark through the Gulf, demand collapsed, and emergency reserves bridged the gap. The adaptation camp was right: the feared shortage gave way to adaptation and a projected surplus. By June 17, the IEA reported Brent had retreated to $81, down $45 from its April peak, driven by markets, not diplomacy. The chokehold imposed real costs, but it failed to produce the sustained crisis needed to compel the West. Iran proved it could disrupt. It did not prove it could compel, and disruption without compellence is not leverage. These workarounds are set to grow: the IEA projects an 8 mb/d supply surge in 2027, sufficient to rebuild every depleted reserve. Iran’s window to exploit the gap is measured in quarters, not years.

That trade rested on a chokehold the market was already dissolving. Yet Washington is still dangling $6 billion in Qatar, the Wall Street Journal reports, to coax Tehran off its toll demands. Iran’s strait was disruption that could not compel. America’s grip on Iran’s oil revenue is compellence that can.

Critics will warn that renewed pressure risks escalation, and that past adaptation offers no guarantee of future resilience. Both points are fair. The question is not whether pressure carries risks. All coercive strategies do. The question is whether those risks outweigh the cost of financing a regime that is already violating the agreement. The evidence increasingly favors enforcement because Iran’s ability to transform disruption into compellence is weaker today than when the memorandum was signed. Washington should act on that shift while the window holds.

Take back the sanctions relief, frozen assets, and reconstruction fund until Iran accepts verified limits on missiles, drones, proxies, and the nuclear program. These measures can be imposed on an escalating basis: non-performance first, then the blockade, then targeted strikes.

Defend the workarounds. Iran’s road back is to attack the pipelines and bypass routes now carrying the world’s oil around it. A second closure, aimed at the bypass infrastructure rather than the strait itself, would hit harder and faster than the first because the inventory cushions have already been consumed. Hardening the bypass routes removes that countermove and changes the strategic equation: if the Saudi and UAE pipelines, Atlantic Basin production, and the Omani corridor remain intact, a second Hormuz closure becomes costly for the world but catastrophic only for Iran, whose oil revenue is blockaded while the world’s supply routes around it. That is the reverse of the pre-war situation. Achieving it requires collective action. Allies should be invited to join mine clearance, corridor security, and layered drone defense, drawing on the integrated air-protection lessons Ukraine’s defenders have validated at cost. Do not pay Iran a toll to restore what the market has already built around it.

Freeze the reconstruction fund, halt asset releases, re-designate sanctions, pull waivers. The money was the prize Iran signed for. Take it back.

The April 13 blockade worked: Iranian crude exports collapsed 70% within weeks, costing Tehran roughly $170 million a day in lost revenue. Reinstate it. With world oil flowing around Iran, choking Iranian exports is far less likely to spike the pump price than it would have in March.

Refuse every demand for Iranian control or transit fees.

The campaign that dismantled Iran’s military in 38 days can be reopened against Kharg Island and the nuclear program as enforcement of a broken deal, strikes confined to military objectives under the law of armed conflict.

The goal is not just a better deal. It is the position of strength the memorandum gave away: Iran’s oil choked, its chokepoint neutralized, bypass routes secured, settlement restored — no nuclear weapon, no missiles, no drones, no proxies. When the bypass holds and Iran’s revenue is blockaded, the strait is optional for the world and essential for Iran. That equation did not exist before the war. It exists now. The tools to press that advantage are still in the drawer. Pick them up.

CAPT Lance B. Gordon (U.S. Navy, ret.) is a retired Navy intelligence officer, graduate of the Army War College and NYU School of Law, and former Partner/Principal at Ernst & Young LLP.

image: Oil tankers sit at anchor offshore in the Strait of Hormuz off Bandar Abbas, Iran, Saturday, May 2, 2026. (Amirhosein Khorgooi/ISNA via AP)