Is the Trump administration is about to surrender a significant portion of its leverage before the hardest phase of negotiations begin?
Mark Dubowitz | June 17, 2026
![Iranian protestors. Screengrab via Youtube [Cropped] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/DliDl9lP2hc](https://www.israpundit.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Screenshot-2026-01-26-120342.png)
Iranian protestors. Screengrab via Youtube [Cropped]
President Trump’s Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Iran avoids the obvious question: why trade away unprecedented leverage after unprecedented military success?
Peloni: What we see when we look at Trump’s statements at the beginning of the war and his shocking comments in the past two days, while Trump talks about regime change having taken place with the replacement of the leadership in power in Iran, what is very clear is that there has been a regime change which has taken place in Washington with the same leadership in America in power. No such reversal in national policy has been seen in history since Queen Anne betrayed her own policies in the War of the Spanish Succession to spite her own commanding general, the Duke of Marlborough, and his wife. There is more to this picture than is we are currently seeing.
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Peloni: The current trajectory of the Trump administration secures the Iranian regime, prolongs the suffering it promotes around the world, including in the US, and makes certain that the Armageddonist death cult ideology in Tehran is given a further license on pursuing its nuclear ambitions by simply outlasting the will of those who have the means to stop them, while lacking the will to secure such a victory.
We Fought the Islamic Republic for Thirty-Nine Days and We Were Winning. The Memorandum in Islamabad Hands That Victory Back. And It Sells the Iranian People to Do It.
Gregg Roman | MEF | June 17, 2026
For thirty years the Middle East Forum has argued one unfashionable proposition: that civilizational threats are not managed, they are ended. We were told this was naïve. Then came the war, thirty-nine days of fire, in which American and Israeli power did to the Iranian war machine what three decades of “engagement” never could. The blockade closed Iran’s economy. The regime that had spent a generation threatening to shut the Strait of Hormuz could not keep its own ports open. For the first time since 1979, the theocracy was not managing us; we were ending it. And at that precise moment, the hour victory required only that we keep our nerve, we are preparing to sign it all away.
Janatan Sayeh | June 17, 2026
A port view of the reflagged Kuwaiti supertanker GAS KING underway. Photo by Department of Defense. American Forces Information Service. Defense Visual Information Center. 1994 -Public Domain, Wikipedia
The U.S. has reportedly granted Iran sanction waivers for selling oil, with one Iranian supertanker transporting crude oil having already crossed the U.S. naval blockade.
Peloni: Excellent march thru the history and struggles of the Jewish people culminating in the reconstitution of the Jewish state on our ancient lands.
Michel Benchimol
Photo by Cole Keister on Unsplash
Few nations in history can trace an unbroken identity across four millennia.
Fewer still have survived repeated conquest, exile, persecution, expulsion, and attempted annihilation while preserving their language, religion, culture, and national consciousness.
See Part 1 HERE
Mark Levin | X | June 17, 2026
“Mark Levin” by Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0
This is the second part of my comments regarding the MOU. I post the first part this morning.
by Gerald A. Honigman
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a global leadership summit on the end of the war in Gaza between Israel. Photo by Daniel Torok – Flickr, Public Domain, Wikipedia
Here’s the perceptive NYPost Editorial Board on this same topic: Iran wins upfront in Trump’s deal…
Think about this for one moment…
Peloni: This is too much to believe. If this really represents the new US policy, Trump is capitulating to China, dropping his goals of building the IMEC, and abandoning Israel, all in the same moment. I don’t believe this is real, not because I think Trump is some paragon of virtue, but because I don’t believe he is truly self destructive by nature. Trump loves nothing better than Trump, and his self image of grandeur and greatness is too great to allow him undo himself so completely as he is doing with this document.
By Caitlin Doornbos | NYP | June 17, 2026
The secret US-Iran peace deal was released Wednesday by a senior US official — three days after it was signed electronically.
A senior US official read the 14-point US-Iran memorandum of understanding to reporters on a call Wednesday — and it pledges the US will immediately lift its blockade and waive Iranian oil sanctions until a final deal is reached.
Peloni: Another must see video with Dr. David Wurmser
See Highlights Below
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The mistaken assumption that everyone shares our aspirations has undermined generations of US policymakers seeking to resolve conflicts from Tehran to Gaza.
By ERIC R. MANDEL | JUNE 15, 2026
Hezbollah forces at a parade in south Beirut, Lebanon, in the late 2000s. Photo by Voice of America – YouTube – Public Domain, Wikipedia
Has US President Donald Trump followed the path of previous Democratic and Republican presidents who believed the Islamic Republic could be trusted to honor a negotiated agreement? Or will he come to recognize that Iran is not merely a difficult adversary but a revolutionary regime whose objectives fundamentally differ from those of the United States?
Mark Levin | X | June 17, 2026
“Mark Levin” by Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0
I start from the proposition that this is among the worst places to have a reasoned and substantive discussion. It is one of the most uncivil places in our civil society. Not because of the platform itself, but because unbridled freedom, without some basic guide rails, attracts the good, the bad, and the ugly from all corners of the world, where the bad and the ugly are able to predominate. It’s a form of hit-and-run anarchy. It’s more French Revolution than American Revolution. From a governing perspective, that is why our Framers established a republic and not a pure democracy.
Peloni: Our ancient city of Jerusalem is a united city, and stands as our incontestable Capital city as it was for our forefathers going back several mellenia. We celebrate our connection to this city on every celebratory occaision and we will never be parted with a single clump of its holy soil. This is our city, and we are keeping it no matter that the Peace Processors might prefer to plan otherwise
Destiny is left unfulfilled so long as we are without our Holy Temple. That is why we “break the glass” with those gathered around the “chuppah.”
Moshe Phillips | June 16, 2026
“Rick Breaks a Glass” by Jennifer Morrow, CC BY 2.0
The HuffPost website recently featured a young Jewish writer explaining what she wanted for her wedding: “I want Jewish traditions involved. I want the whole tradition-filled party—a chuppah, the breaking of the glass, and being lifted up in chairs while loved ones dance the hora around me. ‘My Big Fat Jewish Wedding,’ if you will.”
Peloni: How we arrived where we are, and concerns about where we are going.
Arlene Kushner | June 16, 2026
President Donald J. Trump meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Jan. 27, 2020. By The White House from Washington, DC – President Trump Meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Public Domain, Wikipedia
We cannot in all honesty say we did not realize this could happen. Donald Trump’s propensity for making “deals” is well known.
Peloni: Participation with and promotion of evil are not neutral acts. They are in fact a choice, and like all choices, they bear both consequences for and revelations about the men who make these choices.
The gravest moral hazard is not the man who knows he is doing wrong. It is the man who has constructed a story in which what he is doing is something else.
Ronn Torossian | Jun 16, 2026
Edward Bernays – widely called the father of modern public relations and Sigmund Freud’s nephew, the most prominent Jewish figure in the American PR industry of his generation – published a book in 1923 called Crystallizing Public Opinion. It was the first serious theoretical treatment of mass persuasion as a discipline.
Paul Schnee: The damage that Israel and the United States did to the Islamist terror regime was undone by an agreement that rewards Tehran and vindicates former President Barack Obama.
Jonathan S. Tobin | Published:
Donald Trump speaking at the 2013 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland. Photo by Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America – Donald Trump, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikipedia
Click Link to Read Article
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/428696
Peloni: An attempted attack on the American homeland during a public celebration of the President’s birthday at the President’s residence and during a public event. This story has been well overshadowed, but it is yet another attempt on Pres. Trump’s life.
