For the moment, the guns have fallen quieter. Ships may again move through the Strait of Hormuz, the American blockade is scheduled to end, and Iran and the United States have committed themselves to negotiating a final settlement within 60 days. After months of war, thousands of deaths and severe disruption to regional trade and global energy markets, these are not minor achievements.

But the Islamabad Memorandum should not be mistaken for a peace agreement. It is an armistice built around postponement.

The memorandum succeeds because it addresses what Iran and the United States need immediately. Washington wants commercial navigation restored, attacks halted and the regional war contained. Tehran wants the blockade removed, sanctions pressure reduced, and access to frozen assets and reconstruction resources. Both governments need time, economic relief and a politically defensible way to step back from escalation.

What Memorandum Does not do

What the memorandum does not do is resolve the questions that produced the confrontation.

It does not settle the future of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. It does not provide a final answer on the enriched uranium stockpile. It does not fully define the scope, duration and reversibility of sanctions relief. It does not establish who will finance reconstruction, under what conditions, or through which institutions. Nor does it resolve the relationship between the Iran-US ceasefire and Israel’s continuing operations in Lebanon.

Instead, these disputes have been transferred into a 60-day negotiating period.

That may have been the only way to stop the fighting. Diplomacy often requires postponing insoluble questions until a more favourable political environment emerges. But postponement also creates a dangerous contradiction: the ceasefire depends on future agreement over precisely the issues on which the parties remain farthest apart.

Challenge of Sequencing

The first danger is sequencing. The United States is expected to begin removing its naval blockade and complete the process within 30 days. Iran, in turn, is to restore commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. Yet even this apparently practical exchange contains room for dispute. How quickly must shipping return? Can Iran regulate passage or impose charges? What constitutes complete removal of American interference? Who determines whether either side has complied?

The same problem becomes even more serious on sanctions and the nuclear programme.

Iran will demand concrete economic benefits before making irreversible nuclear concessions. Washington will insist on verified Iranian compliance before granting durable sanctions relief. Tehran remembers that it accepted restrictions under the 2015 nuclear agreement only for the United States to withdraw and restore sanctions. Washington, meanwhile, will argue that financial relief cannot precede verifiable limitations on enrichment, stockpiles and future nuclear activity.

Both positions are politically understandable. Together, they can produce paralysis.

Problem is Structural 

The Memorandum tries to bridge this gap with promises of inspections, sanctions waivers, the release of assets and a larger reconstruction programme. Yet the mechanisms remain incomplete. Temporary waivers can be reversed. Released funds can become subject to new restrictions. Inspections can generate disputes over access. A reconstruction commitment can remain largely symbolic if donors, financial institutions and regional governments do not agree on implementation.

The problem is therefore structural, not merely technical. Iran and the United States are being asked to exchange irreversible concessions through arrangements that each side believes the other can reverse.

Two Incompatible Domestic Stories

This vulnerability will be exploited by political spoilers in three capitals.

In Washington, opponents will describe the memorandum as an expensive retreat from the declared objective of forcing Iran’s unconditional surrender. They will focus on sanctions relief, frozen assets and reconstruction funding while arguing that Iran retains enrichment capacity, missile capabilities and regional influence. Some will compare the agreement unfavourably even with the 2015 nuclear deal, claiming that military pressure was abandoned before its strategic objectives were achieved.

The Trump Administration will therefore be tempted to describe every American commitment as conditional while emphasizing that military action remains available. That language may help manage domestic criticism, but it will also reinforce Tehran’s fear that Washington views the ceasefire merely as another instrument of coercion.

In Tehran, hardliners will advance the opposite argument. They will warn that the United States is using negotiations to complete through diplomacy what it failed to achieve through war. They will resist intrusive inspections, long-term restrictions on enrichment and any arrangement that appears to subordinate Iranian sovereignty to American approval.

Iranian officials have presented the memorandum as a product of resistance, not surrender. This narrative gives the government political room to negotiate, but it also imposes limits. Any concession that appears inconsistent with the claim of victory could provoke opposition from security institutions, ideological factions and constituencies that distrust accommodation with Washington.

The agreement must therefore satisfy two incompatible domestic stories. In Washington, it must appear to constrain Iran. In Tehran, it must appear to confirm that Iran could not be constrained by force.

The Israel Factor

Then there is Tel Aviv.

Israel is not a signatory to the Islamabad Memorandum, yet its actions could determine whether the agreement survives. The text refers to ending military operations on all fronts, including Lebanon. Iran understands this to mean that Israeli operations against Hezbollah must stop and that questions of occupation and withdrawal must be addressed. Israel may reject the proposition that Washington and Tehran can negotiate limits on Israeli military freedom.

This is not a peripheral disagreement. Lebanon may become the place where the ceasefire first breaks.

If Israel continues major strikes against Hezbollah, Tehran will face pressure to respond directly or through allied forces. If Hezbollah attacks Israeli positions, Washington may accuse Iran of violating the agreement. If the United States supports Israeli operations, Tehran may conclude that Washington is evading its own commitments by allowing an ally to continue the war.

Dispute Over Implementation

The Islamabad Memorandum thus seeks to terminate a regional conflict through a bilateral agreement between two states that do not fully control all the relevant actors.

No ceasefire can be durable under these conditions without a mechanism for managing third-party escalation. Washington and Tehran need emergency communication channels, agreed procedures for investigating alleged violations and a mediator capable of intervening before local incidents become tests of national credibility. Pakistan, having facilitated the memorandum, could play that role. But mediation cannot compensate for the absence of agreed rules regarding Israel, Hezbollah and Lebanon.

The postponement of the first scheduled round of negotiations is therefore more than a logistical setback. It reveals the central problem of the entire framework. Tehran wants evidence of American compliance before entering the next phase. Washington wants negotiations to begin before all interim measures have been completed. The dispute over implementation has started before the diplomatic process has properly begun.

Promises to Implementation

Still, the memorandum should not be dismissed. It has created an opportunity where none existed. It has reduced the immediate risk of uncontrolled escalation and acknowledged that neither side can impose a stable regional order through military force alone.

Its survival, however, will depend on moving quickly from broad promises to synchronized obligations. Each Iranian step must trigger a clearly specified American response. Each American measure must be verifiable and difficult to reverse arbitrarily. Nuclear inspections must be credible without becoming a source of targeting intelligence. Sanctions relief must generate visible economic benefits. Lebanon cannot remain an undefined annex to a supposedly comprehensive ceasefire.

The Islamabad Memorandum has bought time. But time is not neutral. It can be used to construct a more durable settlement, or by spoilers in Washington, Tehran and Tel Aviv to rebuild the case for war.

The ceasefire will endure only if the difficult questions postponed in Islamabad are answered before those who opposed the truce succeed in answering them on the battlefield.

(The author is Senior Academic Staff, Department of Political Science, South Asia Institute, Heidelberg University, Germany. The views expressed are personal. He can be reached at zarhani@uni-heidelberg.de)