For the first time this week, we can hold the actual treaty text up against what both sides are doing on the battlefield — and ask, clause by clause, what's already in breach. If you're just joining us: the deal track's been running right alongside the shooting. Washington and Tehran had an interim framework meant to pause the war, tie sanctions relief to Iranian behavior, and keep negotiators moving toward a final settlement. Before today, that framework was already wobbling — Washington revoked an oil-sale license tied to the arrangement, and Iran warned final-deal talks wouldn't start while the threats kept coming. This is Iran War Daily. The BBC just put all 14 points in print — so today we stop guessing what's being violated and start reading it, with CENTCOM still firing. Let's get into it. This one's from Al Jazeera:
The United States and Iran have traded attacks for a second day, straining their fragile ceasefire further after US President Donald Trump said the truce was “over”. The US struck approximately 90 military targets, including missile and drone storage as well as logistics sites along Iran’s coastline late on Wednesday, said the Central Command (CENTCOM), which oversees US military operations in the Middle East.
Second straight day of exchanges, per Al Jazeera. CENTCOM says it hit roughly 90 targets — missile and drone storage, logistics along Iran's coastline — and framed it explicitly as protecting freedom of navigation in Hormuz. Ninety targets. At that scale, you're talking about a campaign. And it lands the same day mediators are on the record begging both sides to uphold the MoU. And note the sourcing on each claim: the 90-target figure is CENTCOM's own, and the vessel strikes that triggered it are attributed to the IRGC, which says it hit key infrastructure. Two separate actors, two separate ledgers. Trump's Truth Social line is the tell — 'retribution for yesterday's bombing of ships.' A chokepoint the whole planet's oil moves through, and the president is running foreign policy in the language of tit-for-tat. Brent's already at a two-week high. That's the part I'd handle carefully — mediators are urging restraint while both principals escalate. The diplomatic track hasn't collapsed, but it's running alongside the shooting, not instead of it. Restraint. On day two of 'the ceasefire is over.' Somebody's paying the shipping insurance premium on that gap, and it isn't the guys posting to Truth Social. BBC News writes:
The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran and their allies in the current war, by signing this MOU, declare the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon, and undertake from now on not to initiate any war or any military operation against each other, and to refrain from the threat or use of force against each other, and ensuring the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon.
Here's what changed today — the full MOU is public. A senior US official read all 14 points to reporters, the BBC among them. So for the first time, I can hold the actual treaty language against what's happening on the ground. And point one is broader than I expected — it names Lebanon, commits both sides and their allies to end operations there, and ties that Lebanon ceasefire directly to the whole deal surviving. Lebanon sits inside the structure of this deal, not off to the side. Right, and the update writes itself — the 60-day window is opening under fire. We've got the text of a peace deal, and the strikes are still landing while you read it. And I want to know which clause covers Hormuz reopening and how it sequences against sanctions, because Washington yanked the oil waiver before day one of the sixty ever ran. You can't reopen a strait on paper while lighting up the economics of it in real time. Hacker News, weighing in:
Will go down in history as the single largest defeat in US history. Paying your enemy $300bn to repair their country while you do not even take of your own would be the end of any other president, yet here we are.
Look, the 'largest defeat in history' framing is a political brawl, not my beat. But underneath the outrage is the hard part — 300 billion is the price tag attached to Hormuz staying open. That's the trade, and nobody at the podium is pricing it out loud. Here's one from Hacker News:
Point 6: The United States of America undertakes with regional partners to develop a definitive, mutually agreed plan with at least $300 billion (£225 billion) for the reconstruction and economic development of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The mechanism for the implementation of this plan will be finalised as part of a final deal within 60 days. All required licenses, waivers and permissions needed for the relevant financial transactions will be granted by the United States of America. I have…
This is point six, so let's be precise — 300 billion dollars for reconstruction of Iran, with the US granting the licenses and waivers, and the mechanism to be finalized within the 60 days. The number's real and in the text, but the mechanics are deferred. Mechanism finalized within 60 days. Sure. And who's writing that check — because 'all required licenses and permissions will be granted' is a lot of confidence from the same government revoking waivers this week. Over on Hacker News:
Bibi will fuck it up before the 60 days are up and we'll be back to square one again. Trump has zero control over him. What a stupid, stupid idiot you folk in the US elected (twice!). Israel's been trying to pull the US into this mess for decades and no other president was dumb enough to take the bait until Trump.
I'd separate the actors there. The deal is US and Iran and their allies — Israel isn't named as a signatory in the text. So whether Israeli operations can breach point one is exactly the seam this MOU doesn't obviously close. That's the gap that matters, honestly. A ceasefire that binds Washington and Tehran but leaves the party actually shooting outside the signature line — you don't need 60 days to see where that cracks. From Keely Bastow at Washington Examiner:
“The United States is still committed to finding a resolution, and technical talks continue. Iran can never possess a nuclear weapon,” a U.S. official told Fox News, with other outlets reporting the same statement. Gulf states that have been mediating talks between the U.S. and Iran are reportedly working behind the scenes to put the pieces of the memorandum of understanding from June 17 back together, with officials from Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia working to lower the tensions on both sides, according to Axios.
Here's the gap plainly: Trump, on the record at the Ankara NATO summit, said the ceasefire was over. And then a U.S. official — unnamed — tells Fox that technical talks continue. So you've got a named principal being contradicted by his own institution. Technical talks. Which is a phrase you reach for when the political talks are dead and you don't want to say so out loud. And per Axios, the same Gulf mediators from June 17 — Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia — are quietly trying to put the MOU back together while the strikes keep landing. Five capitals doing salvage work on a document three weeks into a sixty-day clock — and that same clock has both sides shooting. You can now read the text we just went through and watch it get violated in the same news cycle. The quote itself is narrow, though — 'still committed to finding a resolution, Iran can never possess a nuclear weapon.' Notice that's the one non-negotiable they'll put on paper. Not the hostages, not the strait. The bomb. Right, because that's the line that survives contact with Trump calling their team 'sick.' Great atmosphere for a technical round. From Janatan Sayeh at FDD's Long War Journal:
United States Central Command (CENTCOM) announced on July 7 that it had launched an attack wave on targets in Iran “to impose heavy costs” in response to the Islamic Republic’s strikes against three ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz. Although anonymous US officials told CNN that the latest kinetic campaign is a “punishment” and added that “it won’t be over for a bit,” the targets were limited to military installations on Iran’s southern coast and not major cities like Tehran.
This one has a command name and a date on it: CENTCOM, July 7, an announced attack wave hitting military installations on Iran's southern coast — Bandar Abbas, Qeshm, Sirik — per the Long War Journal. And the trigger was Iran hitting three tankers in the strait that same day — a Qatari LNG carrier and a Saudi crude tanker among them. So we've now got Gulf-flagged ships getting shot at, which is the part that actually moves shipping insurance. The sequence matters here. Tehran was condemning the sanctions waiver revocation the same day CENTCOM struck. So which came first — the waiver pull, or the tanker attacks that CENTCOM says provoked the strikes? The report puts them side by side without ordering them. And note the targeting — coastal military sites, not Tehran. US officials are drawing that line in public on purpose. Anonymous officials tell CNN it's 'punishment,' and quote, 'it won't be over for a bit.' With roughly 90 targets, this is already campaign territory. Right — and this lands the day the BBC published the full MOU. So the strikes we just heard about in the Al Jazeera piece and this CENTCOM wave are running against a treaty text you can now read line by line. From Maziar Motamedi at Al Jazeera:
Tehran, Iran – Iran has insisted on exercising control in the Strait of Hormuz after another flare-up of attacks that prompted United States President Donald Trump to lash out against Iranian leaders. Trump, in the Turkish capital, Ankara, for a NATO summit, told reporters he considers the memorandum of understanding (MoU) that Tehran and Washington signed last month to be over and called Iranian authorities “sick” and “scum” after several ships were hit with drones in the waterway.
So Iran isn't backing off Hormuz control — Al Jazeera makes that the explicit stance, not some throwaway line in a forum. And Trump's calling them 'sick' and 'scum' from a NATO podium in Ankara. Just to be precise: Trump said in Ankara he considers the MOU over. That's the named principal on the record — and it lands with America's closest allies sitting in the same room at the summit. And Tehran's Foreign Ministry fires back by citing the exact provisions — cessation of military operations on all fronts, including Lebanon, plus sovereignty and territorial integrity. Now that the BBC's printed the full text, we can actually check whether they're right. Two things are moving at once here. The US struck southern Iran Wednesday morning — by Trump's own account, twenty times harder than Iran's — and Treasury pulled the sanctions waivers. Iran shot projectiles at Bahrain and Kuwait and downed a US drone. If you’ve got feedback, story ideas, or corrections for Iran War Daily, we’d like to hear from you. Send us a note at iranwardaily at lantern podcasts dot com.
What we’re watching next: the MOU’s maximum 60-day window for negotiating a final deal, and the U.S. commitment to fully end the naval blockade within 30 days of the signing.
We’ve put links to every story we covered in the show notes, so if one caught your ear, you can read it in full there. That’s Iran War Daily for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.