OP-ED: The memorandum that marks America's surrender
Dotan Rousso writes, "The consequences of this agreement will be felt far beyond Iran."
By: Dotan Rousso
Dotan Rousso is an academic and legal scholar specializing in criminal law, privacy, and the intersection of technology and legal ethics.
If the reported text of the new U.S.-Iran memorandum of understanding is accurate, it will be remembered as one of the most humiliating diplomatic documents ever signed by a Western power.
The agreement requires the United States to end military operations, remove its naval blockade, withdraw forces from the region, release frozen Iranian assets, restore Iranian oil exports, terminate sanctions, support a reconstruction package worth at least $300 billion, and legitimize the final arrangement through the United Nations. In return, Iran promises that it does not intend to develop nuclear weapons, agrees to discussions regarding its enrichment program, and commits to a future negotiation process.
One does not need to be a military expert to recognize what this means. If this document had been presented without identifying the parties involved, most readers would assume that Iran had won the war and dictated the terms.
This outcome cannot be explained by a lack of American power. The United States remains the strongest military force on Earth. No empire in human history has possessed such military, technological, financial, and strategic advantages. America did not lose because it lacked power. America lost because it lacked the will to use it.
The modern West increasingly resembles a civilization that values comfort more than victory. Its political leaders fear economic disruption more than strategic defeat. Its citizens worry more about the price at the pump than about the long-term survival of the international order that made their prosperity possible. Its universities have spent decades teaching generations of students that the greatest threat to humanity comes not from dictatorships, terrorists, or theocrats, but from Western civilization itself.
The result is a profound moral confusion. Many who endlessly condemn democratic societies suddenly lose their moral outrage when confronted with regimes that imprison dissidents, torture political opponents, suppress women, persecute homosexuals, and execute critics. Iran’s rulers represent one of the most oppressive regimes in the world, yet much of the Western intellectual class has reserved its greatest hostility not for Tehran, but for the democratic societies attempting to contain it.
The consequences of this agreement will be felt far beyond Iran.
Israel, which stood shoulder to shoulder with the United States throughout the conflict, has effectively been abandoned. Gulf states that endured years of Iranian aggression and missile attacks will learn that American promises are conditional and temporary. Most tragically, tens of millions of Iranians who hoped outside pressure would weaken the regime may instead watch it emerge stronger, richer, and more secure than ever.
But the greatest damage is to the United States itself.
Allies around the world will see that American commitments can disappear overnight. Adversaries will conclude that Washington possesses enormous power but lacks the political and moral confidence to use it. The lesson for every hostile regime will be simple: endure long enough, absorb enough pressure, and eventually America will negotiate its own retreat.
The memorandum reveals something deeper than a failed strategy toward Iran. It reveals a civilization increasingly uncertain of itself, unwilling to bear costs, and incapable of translating power into victory.
Empires do not collapse when they run out of weapons. They collapse when they run out of conviction.
If this agreement becomes reality, historians may remember it as more than a diplomatic failure. They may remember it as the moment the American Empire publicly acknowledged that it no longer possessed the confidence required to act like one.