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Why Not Show Us the Deal? The administration seems suspiciously coy about something it wants to paint as a victory. Mike Nelson / June 16, 2026

…So now we wait to see what is in the actual memorandum, fully confident that if the portions the administration feels are worthy of hyping seem pretty dismal even through the spin, what will be revealed in the coming days will be inherently worse. There’s also the potential that whatever is agreed in this memorandum will be all that we get, with no future agreement on the enriched uranium or limitations on Iranian nuclear research beyond the single line hollow promise. Not only does there seem to be no agreement about severing Iran from its proxy militias, as the White House had repeatedly claimed was a goal of the war, but the deal provides an umbrella of protection over Hezbollah that, combined with America’s scolding of Israel for strikes against the Iranian proxy, suggests the opposite. And, of course, for the Iranian people, there will be none of the promised help on the way.

I await the actual language of the memorandum to assess just how bad it is—with a potential range between merely objectionable to truly disastrous. But I feel confident this isn’t a matter of assessing whether the glass is glass half-full or half-empty. The glass is likely 90 percent empty. The way this war ends was baked into the confusion in which it started. Trump was never clear about his exact reasons for going to war or what conditions he was trying to achieve. Without any fixed variables, he was failing, and the desire to end the crisis of his own creation, under any circumstances, became the only goal.

Mike Nelson is a retired Army Special Forces officer and a member of the Atlantic Council’s Counterterrorism Project. He is formerly of the Institute for the Study of War and the National Security Institute. You can find him on x.com at @mikenelson586.

…So now we wait to see what is in the actual memorandum, fully confident that if the portions the administration feels are worthy of hyping seem pretty dismal even through the spin, what will be revealed in the coming days will be inherently worse. There’s also the potential that whatever is agreed in this memorandum will be all that we get, with no future agreement on the enriched uranium or limitations on Iranian nuclear research beyond the single line hollow promise. Not only does there seem to be no agreement about severing Iran from its proxy militias, as the White House had repeatedly claimed was a goal of the war, but the deal provides an umbrella of protection over Hezbollah that, combined with America’s scolding of Israel for strikes against the Iranian proxy, suggests the opposite. And, of course, for the Iranian people, there will be none of the promised help on the way.

I await the actual language of the memorandum to assess just how bad it is—with a potential range between merely objectionable to truly disastrous. But I feel confident this isn’t a matter of assessing whether the glass is glass half-full or half-empty. The glass is likely 90 percent empty. The way this war ends was baked into the confusion in which it started. Trump was never clear about his exact reasons for going to war or what conditions he was trying to achieve. Without any fixed variables, he was failing, and the desire to end the crisis of his own creation, under any circumstances, became the only goal.

Mike Nelson is a retired Army Special Forces officer and a member of the Atlantic Council’s Counterterrorism Project. He is formerly of the Institute for the Study of War and the National Security Institute. You can find him on x.com at @mikenelson586.

Why Not Show Us the Deal? The administration seems suspiciously coy about something it wants to paint as a victory. Mike Nelson / June 16, 2026

…So now we wait to see what is in the actual memorandum, fully confident that if the portions the administration feels are worthy of hyping seem pretty dismal even through the spin, what will be revealed in the coming days will be inherently worse. There’s also the potential that whatever is agreed in this memorandum will be all that we get, with no future agreement on the enriched uranium or limitations on Iranian nuclear research beyond the single line hollow promise. Not only does there seem to be no agreement about severing Iran from its proxy militias, as the White House had repeatedly claimed was a goal of the war, but the deal provides an umbrella of protection over Hezbollah that, combined with America’s scolding of Israel for strikes against the Iranian proxy, suggests the opposite. And, of course, for the Iranian people, there will be none of the promised help on the way.

I await the actual language of the memorandum to assess just how bad it is—with a potential range between merely objectionable to truly disastrous. But I feel confident this isn’t a matter of assessing whether the glass is glass half-full or half-empty. The glass is likely 90 percent empty. The way this war ends was baked into the confusion in which it started. Trump was never clear about his exact reasons for going to war or what conditions he was trying to achieve. Without any fixed variables, he was failing, and the desire to end the crisis of his own creation, under any circumstances, became the only goal.

Mike Nelson is a retired Army Special Forces officer and a member of the Atlantic Council’s Counterterrorism Project. He is formerly of the Institute for the Study of War and the National Security Institute. You can find him on x.com at @mikenelson586.

…So now we wait to see what is in the actual memorandum, fully confident that if the portions the administration feels are worthy of hyping seem pretty dismal even through the spin, what will be revealed in the coming days will be inherently worse. There’s also the potential that whatever is agreed in this memorandum will be all that we get, with no future agreement on the enriched uranium or limitations on Iranian nuclear research beyond the single line hollow promise. Not only does there seem to be no agreement about severing Iran from its proxy militias, as the White House had repeatedly claimed was a goal of the war, but the deal provides an umbrella of protection over Hezbollah that, combined with America’s scolding of Israel for strikes against the Iranian proxy, suggests the opposite. And, of course, for the Iranian people, there will be none of the promised help on the way.

I await the actual language of the memorandum to assess just how bad it is—with a potential range between merely objectionable to truly disastrous. But I feel confident this isn’t a matter of assessing whether the glass is glass half-full or half-empty. The glass is likely 90 percent empty. The way this war ends was baked into the confusion in which it started. Trump was never clear about his exact reasons for going to war or what conditions he was trying to achieve. Without any fixed variables, he was failing, and the desire to end the crisis of his own creation, under any circumstances, became the only goal.

Mike Nelson is a retired Army Special Forces officer and a member of the Atlantic Council’s Counterterrorism Project. He is formerly of the Institute for the Study of War and the National Security Institute. You can find him on x.com at @mikenelson586.

He still has one opportunity to reverse this defeat by not proceeding with the MoU.

"Trump’s chaos and incoherence have led to failure on Iran"

He still has one opportunity to reverse this defeat by not proceeding with the MoU.

"Trump’s chaos and incoherence have led to failure on Iran"

He still has one opportunity to reverse this defeat by not proceeding with the MoU.

"Trump’s chaos and incoherence have led to failure on Iran"

He still has one opportunity to reverse this defeat by not proceeding with the MoU.

"Trump’s chaos and incoherence have led to failure on Iran"

Mr. President: You do understand that we fought this war against the evil terrorist Mullahs & IRGC to win and not just to make a deal that they will not honor!

Mr. President: You do understand that we fought this war against the evil terrorist Mullahs & IRGC to win and not just to make a deal that they will not honor!

The “Deal” that does not resolve any of the original issues for going to war. Why is President Trump falling for it?

The USA has got Iran in the position where we can demand Iran's unconditional surrender; and, yet, President Trump is walking back all the gains of our military with this "Deal"!

The USA has got Iran in the position where we can demand Iran's unconditional surrender; and, yet, President Trump is walking back all the gains of our military with this "Deal"!

The “Deal” that does not resolve any of the original issues for going to war. Why is President Trump falling for it?

The USA has got Iran in the position where we can demand Iran's unconditional surrender; and, yet, President Trump is walking back all the gains of our military with this "Deal"!

The USA has got Iran in the position where we can demand Iran's unconditional surrender; and, yet, President Trump is walking back all the gains of our military with this "Deal"!