The next phase of negotiations between the United States and Iran after the agreement announced on Wednesday is up in the air. Talks scheduled for this Friday in Switzerland will not take place, as the Swiss Ministry of Foreign Affairs communicated early this morning. The announcement comes after a White House spokesperson said overnight that US Vice President JD Vance had canceled his planned trip to meet with Iranian negotiators in Switzerland to begin talks on the implementation of the agreement reached between Tehran and Washington to end the war. The talks have been postponed sine die after Israel launched an attack in southern Lebanon that left at least 18 Lebanese dead, the bloodiest since the ceasefire came into effect. The agreement provides for a ceasefire "on all fronts" that includes Lebanon, a commitment that Benjamin Netanyahu's government has made clear it does not intend to respect. The Israeli army has admitted the deaths of four soldiers, including an officer, in clashes with the Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah, an ally of Tehran.

Criticism of the preliminary agreement signed between the United States and Iran has escalated since the pact became known, opening a rift not only between supporters of Israel, but also within the Republican Party. With the aim of curbing these attacks, the White House decided to share the text of the document, but this has not been enough. This Thursday, US Vice President J.D. Vance held a press conference in which he defended his government's work in Iran, called for listening to the opinions of the Gulf countries, and tried to convince that Tehran must maintain a certain capacity to defend itself.

The framework agreement between the US and Iran to end the war initiated by Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu on February 28 has been met with hope in the Middle East and financial markets, as demonstrated by the fall in oil prices. However, after countless breaches of previous truces and false proclamations of the conflict's imminent end, caution prevails among most international shipping companies.

Amid rumors about what the memorandum of understanding announced between Washington and Tehran includes to extend the truce by 60 days and open a negotiation period, a senior US official read the text's content on Wednesday during a call with journalists. For now, there is no graphic evidence, but Iran's official news agency (IRNA) has also released details.

In geopolitics, things change very quickly, and while a few weeks ago Vladimir Putin appeared to be one of the indirect winners of the Iran war, as the closure of Hormuz benefited his oil exports, now with the agreement to reopen the strait, the tables may have turned. At least that is what the European members of the G-7 intend, who plan to pressure Donald Trump to take advantage now to increase pressure on the Kremlin to desist from the occupation of Ukraine and agree to sign a peace deal. Trump himself has agreed, and he was seen in a friendly attitude chatting with Volodymyr Zelensky at the Evian summit in France.

This Tuesday's statements from Tehran and Washington show that the battle to interpret the agreement between the United States and Iran has only just begun. While the official signing of the memorandum of understanding remains scheduled for next Friday in Geneva, the Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Abbas Araghchi, has increased pressure on Israel by stating that the end of the war in Lebanon constitutes an inseparable condition for the end of the conflict with Iran.

If there is one thing the G-7 countries agree on, it is that the pact between the United States and Iran to end the conflict could provide a boost for peace in Ukraine. With the war in Iran, that of Ukraine had taken a back seat. But now, with the Middle East conflict on track – albeit with a fragile agreement – the wind is blowing in the right direction. At the summit gathering the seven major world powers – France, the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States – in the French city of Évian-les-Bains until this Wednesday, the G-7 leaders have united to redouble pressure on Russia to sit down and negotiate peace. "Russia should reach an agreement," warned US President Donald Trump.

"Ships of the world, start your engines. Let the oil flow!", the American president wrote this Sunday on his network, Truth Social. On his 80th birthday, Donald Trump celebrated that the agreement with Iran had been "completed", congratulated all those involved and boasted of having gone much further than any other leader of the United States.

Tired and weary, the Iranian players circled the Los Angeles stadium pitch, applauding the fans. In the stands, thousands of Iranian-American citizens were cheering them on while displaying monarchist flags. That is, symbols banned in present-day Iran. But for a moment, if only for a moment, it seemed that all Iranians could walk side-by-side, united. Iran's national team debuted at the World Cup by drawing 2-2 in a beautiful match against a combative New Zealand that surprised with its daring. It was a day when football triumphed, with goals and spectacle, even though in the preceding days, the talk, as expected, had only been about politics. A country's anthem doesn't always play on the territory of the country that has bombed it.

Donald Trump celebrated his 80th birthday with the White House gardens transformed into a Roman circus with martial arts fighters and seven fights to honor the emperor. A birthday rounded off, moreover, with a preliminary agreement in Iran, which Israel's bombings of Lebanon made falter until the last minute.

The memorandum that the United States and Iran have virtually signed and plan to formalize this Friday in Switzerland is presented as an attempt to extinguish several fires simultaneously in the Middle East. It is not a definitive treaty, but a framework of understanding that opens sixty days of negotiation and seeks, above all, to avoid a new regional escalation.

Trump celebrated his 80th birthday with a dantesque spectacle of almost no-holds-barred wrestling, a metaphor for the world he desires. And also with a poisoned gift from Tehran: the announcement of a ceasefire that, if it doesn't derail before being signed on Friday in Geneva, will put an end to more than 100 days of war against Iran. The American president needed to reach an agreement at all costs with a regime he had promised to annihilate and which has resisted the onslaught.

The week begins under the sign of good news, apparently, which is the peace agreement between the United States and Iran. I say "apparently" because it is an announced but not signed agreement, and on top of that it is threatened by a friend of Trump, Netanyahu, who says he will not withdraw from southern Lebanon. Of all the times it seemed the war was coming to an end, this is the most plausible, but what do you want me to tell you, at this point, about the reliability of Trump and an Israeli prime minister who is running forward to save his skin by killing thousands of people in Gaza and Lebanon?

There is a certain left that views an Iranian nuclear Islamism favorably as a counterbalance to Israeli military power. Does this argument make sense? Let's recap. It was in 2002 that moles from the opposition People's Mujahedin Organization revealed the existence of the secret nuclear weapons program of the Shiite Totalitarian Theocracy (TTXI) in Natanz. Then came the economic sanctions from the UN, the US, and the European Union against Iran, as well as the first cyberwar in history – the sending of the Stuxnet virus to the same nuclear power plant, organized by Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu in 2010 – as well as the assassination of the regime's nuclear scientists, attacks, and sabotage, which continue to this day. Allah did not inform his envoys in Iran that the eyes of American satellites were observing every step of their “hidden” nuclear activities, without Washington having any intention of overthrowing them at the time. With a corrupt and exacerbated neoliberal capitalism and a medieval persecution against the true Iranian anti-imperialist forces, the TTXI had contributed to turning what had been the most relevant power in the region into an outcast and isolated state, known worldwide for beating, year after year, its own execution record and for persecuting rebellious Iranian teenage girls who had brought it to its knees – more so than Mossad spies dressed in cassocks and turbans.

The United States and Iran have finally closed a deal that provides for the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and the cessation of military operations in the region. The first to announce the pact was Pakistan, which is acting as mediator, and then it was confirmed by the US President, Donald Trump, and the Iranian regime.

Iran and the United States are on the verge of signing an agreement that would essentially allow the resumption of cargo ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a key passage for global hydrocarbon transport. Messages sent by both sides indicate that the two parties have agreed on the text, but the final ratification by the leaders of both countries has not yet occurred, and contradictions persist regarding when it might happen. Both from Washington and Islamabad, the main negotiator of the process, optimistic messages were repeated this Saturday, stating that the signing could be made official in the coming hours, although Tehran has cooled expectations.

After decades of conflicts, interventions and containment policies, Israel is militarily safer today than many of its neighbours, but the region is more unstable than ever. In southern Lebanon, Israeli bombings continue despite the ceasefire announced in April under American mediation. On the ground, the agreement has not led to a stable situation. The Israeli army continues to carry out operations in border areas, while the Lebanese government denounces repeated attacks, destruction of homes and the blocking of the return of displaced persons. Lebanese authorities speak of thousands of incidents since the truce came into force.

From threatening to erase Iran from the map to announcing an agreement within hours… which then doesn't materialize. From stating (about 40 times) that the war is about to end to assuring that he is in no hurry to end the conflict. And from making rising prices his main campaign objective to saying he "loves" inflation and that the latest figures don't worry him; in fact, they are "great".

Despite the cross-attacks of recent days, the United States and Iran have already agreed "the text of the peace agreement", as reported on social media by the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Shehbaz Sharif, who is acting as mediator between the two parties. However, for the moment the parties have not yet given their final approval.

Donald Trump's plot twists in his war against Iran are constant, and this Thursday he offered one of the clearest examples. After a second night of crossfire, the President of the United States had threatened more bombings and had even raised the possibility of invading the Iranian island of Kharg, the country's main oil hub. A few hours later, however, he assured that he had canceled the planned attacks, announced a "great deal," and declared the war over. But Tehran has denied that the pact is closed, in a dynamic of affirmations and denials that has already become habitual.