Where Does U.S. Iran Policy Stand? Trump’s MOU Consideration & What Comes Next

Goldberg drew a detailed parallel between the current negotiating environment and the JCPOA experience. Under the JCPOA, relief was provided through indefinitely extended waivers in exchange for Iranian nuclear compliance, creating a constraint where any U.S. pressure on terrorism or missiles could be countered by nuclear escalation threats. In practice, there were no meaningful terrorism or missile sanctions during the JCPOA period. The current danger is that a Strait-for-sanctions trade would create the same structure, with Strait closure serving as the new trigger instead of nuclear escalation.

The current danger, he argued, is that a Strait-for-sanctions trade, in which the United States lifts the blockade in exchange for the Strait reopening, creates an analogous structure in which any future enforcement action can be met with a threat to close the Strait again. Once that threat is credible, the United States has effectively transferred its coercive leverage permanently to Tehran. The new extortion racket would be Strait-based rather than nuclear-based, but the underlying dynamic, a regime with a durable trigger it can pull whenever U.S. pressure becomes inconvenient, would be identical.

His preferred alternative, escrowing Iranian oil revenue, allowing physical traffic through the Strait while withholding cash pending demonstrated compliance, is designed specifically to avoid creating that trigger. Iran gets demonstrated U.S. willingness to allow commerce to resume, but does not get the cash until it performs. The question is whether Tehran accepts a structure that denies it the ability to threaten economic retaliation if the United States later applies pressure on non-nuclear issues.

Ben Taleblu pushed back on the framing that the IRGC’s post-conflict political consolidation, including the reported resignation of the Iranian president and the elevation of IRGC veterans to key security positions, represents a new or destabilizing development. The three previous secretaries of the Supreme National Security Council were also IRGC veterans. Iran has had an IRGC-connected president before. What the current moment represents is not a structural change but an acceleration of a coarsening dynamic that Khamenei’s 37-year leadership has deliberately cultivated.

The practical implication for negotiations is that the interlocutors across the table are hardened ideological actors with deep institutional commitments to regime survival and deep suspicion of Western intentions, and that any agreement will be interpreted and implemented through that lens. Ben Taleblu’s counsel was not that this makes a deal impossible, but that it sharpens the requirement for concrete, verifiable, irreversible commitments rather than declaratory assurances. A regime that treats survival as a victory will play to the edge of any agreement’s limits.

Goldberg detailed Operation Economic Fury’s crackdown on illicit financial networks. When the intelligence community is directed to make Iranian illicit networks its top priority, it finds them, including through sanctions on Iraqi oil ministry officials, disruption of shadow banking in the UAE, pressure in Islamabad and Abu Dhabi, interdiction of air traffic used to move money and goods. The $500 million per day estimate reflects a combined maritime, air, overland, and financial cutoff that pure sanctions alone cannot achieve.

Goldberg provided detail on Operation Economic Fury, the parallel economic pressure campaign accompanying the naval blockade. Even prior to the current operations, Iran was exporting an estimated 1.5 million barrels of oil per day illicitly through Chinese teapot refineries and front company networks. India, Japan, South Korea, and legitimate Chinese state enterprises had largely stopped taking Iranian product, but smaller, opaque Chinese refining entities operating two or three degrees removed from sanctionable actors continued to provide Iran a significant revenue stream.

What Economic Fury represents, Goldberg argued, is an intelligence community directive making the illicit financial network the top analytical priority. When the IC is told to find who is enabling Iranian banking, who is taking Iranian oil product, who is insuring Iranian vessels, and who is capitalizing front companies, it finds those networks. The result has been visible in practice: sanctions on Iraqi oil ministry officials, crackdowns on shadow banking networks in the UAE, high-level diplomatic pressure in Islamabad and Abu Dhabi, and interdiction of air traffic being used to move money and goods alongside the maritime blockade. Overland routes through Pakistan have also been disrupted through direct government-to-government engagement. He noted that FDD had recommended expanding the crackdown to civilian airliners being used for illicit purposes, a step that was subsequently taken.

The aggregate effect, he said, is that Iran is effectively cut off on all sides, maritime, air, overland, and financial, in a way that pure sanctions without a blockade could never achieve. The $500 million per day estimate reflects the combined effect of export denial and import denial, not just one side of the ledger.

Ben Taleblu argued the three internet freedom bills (FREEDOM Act, IRAN Act, Iran Human Rights, Internet Freedom and Accountability Act) should be treated as core national security legislation, not peripheral human rights measures. The regime has used 88-day internet blackouts to cover mass repression. Two cyber superpowers, the United States and Israel, face a regime that retains this capability against a pro-American population. Addressing it is a political, strategic, and moral win simultaneously.

Ben Taleblu argued that the 88-day internet shutdown, the world’s longest, that accompanied the regime’s crackdown against its own population should reframe how Congress thinks about internet freedom legislation. The bills he cited, the FREEDOM Act, the IRAN Act, and the Iran Human Rights, Internet Freedom and Accountability Act, are currently treated in Washington as human rights measures at the periphery of the Iran policy debate. He argued they should be treated as core national security legislation.

His reasoning: Iran has one of the most pro-American populations in the Middle East, and the regime uses internet blackouts as a tool of mass repression, covering the killing of tens of thousands under a communications blackout. The United States and Israel are two cyber superpowers. That a regime facing both as adversaries retains the capability to impose total information blackouts on its own population is, in his view, a strategic failure. Addressing it is simultaneously a political win, a strategic win, and a moral win. He noted that even after the internet was nominally restored following the 88-day shutdown, access remains highly tiered and filtered, meaning the regime’s information control capability remains substantially intact.

The broader argument he advanced is that the only durable solution to the Iran problem, the one that actually allows the United States to “downsize the importance of the Middle East in U.S. national security thinking,” as many American voters want, requires removing the arsonist behind many of the region’s fires. Supporting the Iranian people’s ability to organize and communicate is one of the most asymmetric levers available.

Goldberg said no AUMF is needed. The president acted within the War Powers Act for initial operations and declared major hostilities terminated May 1. The blockade’s mission of restoring freedom of navigation is grounded in international law and the inherent right of self-defense. Ben Taleblu went further, calling the War Powers Act likely unconstitutional and arguing its use has consistently tracked partisan rather than strategic or legal lines.

A caller asked whether Congress needs to pass an Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) to cover ongoing operations. Goldberg’s answer was that he does not see a legal need for one. The president acted within the War Powers Act for the initial military operations and declared major hostilities terminated on May 1. Since then, nine War Powers resolutions have failed in Congress. The blockade, while involving the use of military force, has a distinct stated mission of restoring freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, and is grounded in international law, treaty obligations to allies, and the inherent right of self-defense.

He noted that he had previously argued for rebranding the ongoing operation as “Operation Epic Passage,” an explicitly defensive convoy operation to restore freedom of navigation, as a cleaner legal and strategic posture than the current zone-defense approach. The president preferred the “Project Freedom” branding and the zone-defense model, which lasted 36 hours. What appears to be happening now, he suggested, is a quieter version of the same thing: targeted strikes on Iranian command-and-control assets when fired upon, which he described as “Project Love Tap.”

Ben Taleblu went further, stating his view that the War Powers Act itself is likely unconstitutional, not as a matter of formal legal analysis, but as a structural argument about the commander-in-chief’s war-making authority. He noted that essentially every congressional invocation of the act has broken along partisan rather than strategic or legal lines, which he argued is evidence that it is being used as a political tool rather than a genuine constitutional constraint.

Stricker’s closing remarks addressed the question of what the administration should be prepared to do if an MOU is not achieved, falls apart, or is determined to be undesirable. Her view: the administration needs to be actively developing and ready to execute options it has so far been unwilling to employ. These include sending in small teams to physically recover high-enriched uranium and other enriched uranium stocks; militarily disabling access to defunct nuclear sites that may hold recoverable assets; and conducting additional strikes. She noted that the Israeli intelligence penetration of the Iranian nuclear program is deep enough that, in the short to medium term, that should help with targeting and assessment.

Her assessment was that President Trump has made a political calculation that a diplomatic agreement is the more achievable path to resolving these issues than military action alone, and that this calculation may be correct. But if that path closes, the contingency planning needs to be in place and the options need to be ready. She also argued that covert efforts to support regime change from within Iran must be part of the long-term strategy, as the only truly durable solution to Iranian nuclear ambitions is a government in Tehran that does not share the current regime’s ideology and incentive structure.