The first test for this deal came on day one — and the Swiss signing ceremony just didn't show up. If you're catching up: U.S.-Iran talks have moved from mediated drafts and contested terms to an electronically signed Islamabad MoU, endorsed by Pakistan and now in force after sign-off from leaders on both sides. But the hard pieces are still open — nuclear terms, sanctions relief, Lebanon, and reopening Hormuz in a way ships, insurers, and governments actually trust. Iran War Daily. Today: Geneva's off, the envoys reroute to Pakistan, Beirut takes more strikes — and we get the first real vessel number out of Hormuz. Where do you even want to start? From CBS News:
Talks on Iran's nuclear program were expected to start in Switzerland as soon as this weekend, but the White House said Vice President JD Vance's trip there was put off and Switzerland said the negotiations have been postponed. - At least 10 commercial vessels were transiting the Strait of Hormuz Thursday morning amid a noticeable increase in traffic hours after President Trump and his Iranian counterpart signed the agreement between the two countries.
So: signed Wednesday, first nuclear meeting postponed by Friday. That runway held right up until it didn't. Let's be precise about who said what. The White House says Vance's trip to Switzerland is off; Switzerland itself says the negotiations are postponed. Two sources, both pointing the same way. And the MoU text says Hormuz reopens immediately. CBS counts at least 10 commercial vessels transiting Thursday morning. Ten. Against 118 stranded, that's a trickle through the door, not the door coming off the hinges. Put those two numbers next to each other — 10 transiting, 118 backed up. The strait is still in a test phase. And underwriters need a lot more incident-free days than one Thursday morning. Here's the gap that bugs me, Sarah. They wrote in a 60-day clock for a permanent treaty, per Middle East Eye, but they can't get session one off the ground this weekend. How do you burn day one of 60 on a postponement? And the signing didn't touch Lebanon. Israel's military says four soldiers were killed in southern fighting; Lebanon's state agency puts the overnight airstrike death toll at sixteen. Same night the deal's supposed to be holding. Right — Iran signs, the US signs, Israel keeps bombing. Israel never put a pen to this thing. So who declares a breach when the signatories aren't the ones shooting? From BBC News:
Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff and the US president's son-in-law Jared Kushner are heading to Pakistan for peace talks with Iran on Saturday morning, the White House has said. "The Iranians want to talk," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, adding that US Vice-President JD Vance was "on standby" to travel if the talks proved successful.
So Vance's Geneva trip is dead, and Witkoff and Kushner are flying to Pakistan instead. Leavitt says the Iranians 'want to talk' — but Baqaei's already in Islamabad saying no meeting is even planned between Iran and the US. Read that again. The US is flying two envoys to Pakistan, and Tehran's foreign ministry says they'll convey 'observations' to the Pakistanis. So you've got two delegations in the same city, still refusing to sit in the same room. That's where I'd be careful. The CBS piece already told us Switzerland is postponed. Now the venue's moved from neutral Geneva to the capital that brokered the MoU in the first place. On June 18, we wondered whether Islamabad had the runway to deliver. Witkoff and Kushner rerouting there — per the White House, per BBC — tells you the talks are falling back to the room where the deal was assembled. And Hegseth's standing at the same briefing calling the Hormuz blockade 'growing.' Signed MoU, postponed talks, blockade growing. The clock's running and nobody's at the table. NBC News writes:
JERUSALEM/BEIRUT — Israel said its military attacked Hezbollah targets in Beirut’s southern suburbs on Sunday after the Lebanese armed group fired into Israeli territory, and Lebanon’s Civil Defense Ministry said three people were killed. The Israeli military said earlier that Hezbollah had launched three projectiles towards communities in northern Israel, calling it a blatant ceasefire violation.
Israel says its military hit Hezbollah targets in Dahiyeh on Sunday after Hezbollah fired three projectiles into northern Israel. Lebanon's Civil Defense Ministry puts the dead at three. NBC cites Reuters and Lebanon's state news agency, NNA. I want to be careful with the framing here. The MoU was signed this same week, and Israel isn't a party to it. So when the IDF calls Hezbollah's fire a 'blatant ceasefire violation,' it's talking about a ceasefire the signed paper doesn't actually govern. Right, and look at the order of operations. The MoU gets signed Wednesday, the Geneva talks get postponed, and the bombs in Beirut just keep landing. Three dead Sunday, after the strike that killed people on the 14th. No one at that signing ceremony could call this a breach, because the country dropping the ordnance never signed. There's the hole: a deal with a 60-day clock, and a Lebanon front running on its own logic. And the two narratives never quite meet. Israel frames it as response to Hezbollah projectiles; Lebanon counts the apartment in Dahiyeh and the four wounded. They're both from the same Sunday, and neither one corroborates the other yet. Here's Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research:
Supply security in global energy markets depends not only on production capacities but also on the continuity of strategic transit points. Maritime routes and straits are of strategic importance, particularly for the shipment of critical raw materials such as crude oil. Any disruption or change in traffic density along these routes exerts pressure on pricing mechanisms.
SETA's got the data on what a real Hormuz blockade does: daily tanker transits, normally 50 to 60, have dropped to a virtual standstill since March 1. That's the baseline. And here's the number that matters tonight: at least 10 commercial vessels transiting Thursday, per CBS. Set that against a normal flow of 50 to 60. That's a trickle through a chokepoint that moves a fifth of the world's seaborne oil and LNG. Right — and SETA dates the blockade to March 1, so this week's signing comes roughly three and a half months into a closed strait. A signature can announce a reopening; 10 transits looks more like a test run than a cleared strait. And the underwriters don't price a press conference, Sarah. SETA's saying this shock is worse than 2020, worse than the European hit from Russia-Ukraine — and the first nuclear meeting that was supposed to start this weekend just got postponed. You don't get insurers back at 10 vessels with no talks even started. So those are the two numbers I'm watching together: the MoU's 60-day clock, and a flow that's still a fraction of normal, months in. SETA gives us the before; CBS gives us a very thin after. If you rely on Iran War Daily for clear updates on a fast-moving crisis, try Ebola Watch — a daily briefing on the DRC and Uganda Ebola outbreaks, with case counts, border tracing, WHO vaccine news, and traveler guidance. Find it wherever you listen to podcasts.
Next, we're watching the MoU's 60-day nuclear-negotiating window — the fixed deadline for turning the framework into a final deal.
You’ll find links to every story we covered today in the show notes, so if one caught your ear, you can read deeper there. That’s Iran War Daily for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.