US-Iran truce lowers attacks but leaves Gulf conflict unresolved
A 14-point US-Iran memorandum reopened Hormuz and eased fighting, but analysts told Al Jazeera it is more a containment pact than a peace deal.
By Sofia Marchetti · World Affairs Correspondent
4 min read
A June memorandum between the United States and Iran has reduced direct attacks after a 109-day war, but fighting has not fully stopped, according to Al Jazeera. Analysts told the network the pact is designed to contain the damage from the conflict while Washington and Tehran test whether a more durable settlement is possible.
US President Donald Trump and Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf signed the 14-point memorandum electronically in June, Al Jazeera reported. Pakistan and Qatar played major mediation roles in the framework, which lifts the US naval blockade on Iran in return for Tehran reopening the Strait of Hormuz, a key energy route whose closure had driven up global energy prices and unsettled markets, according to the report.
The war began on February 28 and was officially paused when the memorandum was signed on June 17, Al Jazeera reported. The two governments are now in a 60-day negotiating period aimed at reaching a permanent settlement.
Attacks fall, but do not end
Al Jazeera reported that reciprocal attacks have declined since the memorandum was agreed, though clashes between US and Iranian forces continued on Friday and Saturday. The report also cited continuing limited strikes and accusations, including US strikes on southern Iranian ports and Iranian attacks targeting Kuwait and Bahrain this week.
Analysts who spoke to Al Jazeera described the deal as an agreement produced by pressure rather than trust. Khalid al-Jaber, director of the Middle East Council for Global Affairs, said the three-month war changed the region by turning the confrontation into open state-to-state conflict, damaging infrastructure and disrupting supply chains between Asia and Europe.
Al-Jaber said about 7,200 missiles were fired during the war, with nearly 80 percent aimed at civilian infrastructure. He told Al Jazeera this reflected an Iranian effort to raise the cost of the conflict for the United States and the region by striking Arab Gulf cities.
Nabil Khoury, a former US diplomat, told Al Jazeera the conflict also showed the limits of military force. He said US power did not produce the policy change Washington sought from a weaker state, while the war exposed the United States to domestic political pressures and worldwide economic costs.
Why this truce differs from Gaza and Lebanon deals
Al Jazeera said analysts drew a contrast between the US-Iran memorandum and ceasefires involving Israel, Hamas and Lebanon. The Gaza ceasefire agreed in October 2025 called for phased withdrawal and prisoner exchange, but the Gaza Government Media Office reported 3,465 Israeli violations over 260 days, with 1,045 Palestinians killed, 3,380 injured and 113 detained.
The US-brokered Lebanon ceasefire of November 2024 has also been breached repeatedly by Israel, according to Al Jazeera. Analysts cited by the network said Israel has used the arrangement to shape security conditions in its favor, with hundreds of Israeli air strikes in Lebanon since the deal and at least 4,500 people killed there.
Negar Mortazavi, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, told Al Jazeera that the Gaza and Lebanon ceasefires are more difficult to enforce because they involve non-state actors with fragmented command structures and competing power centers. She said the US-Iran pact has clearer chains of command because both parties are states that can negotiate directly.
Mortazavi said both Washington and Tehran also face strong economic reasons to keep the memorandum alive. Renewed fighting could again threaten the Strait of Hormuz, disrupt energy markets and impose heavy costs beyond the two countries, she told Al Jazeera.
Domestic politics shape the deal
Abdelqader Fayez, an Al Jazeera journalist and researcher in Iranian studies, said the current diplomacy differs from the 2015 nuclear deal because Washington appears to have sought contact with Iran’s military establishment rather than the moderate diplomatic wing that negotiated with former President Barack Obama.
Mortazavi described the memorandum as a bargain between Iran’s hardline security establishment and a Republican White House. She told Al Jazeera that could make the arrangement less refined but potentially more durable because it rests with power centers able either to enforce it or undermine it.
Al-Jaber described the outlook for the next 60 days as “pessoptimism,” mixing pessimism and optimism, according to Al Jazeera. Mortazavi said the most realistic outcome is a managed rivalry with rules, rather than full peace or a return to open war.
This story draws on original reporting from Al Jazeera.