The Iran Desk of Global Insights Group (GIG), a London-headquartered intelligence and due diligence firm with deep source networks across MENA, did an in-depth recap of the weeks following the unravelling of the Iran-U.S. interim deal, looking at the renewed fight over Hormuz, Iran's domestic strain and shifting politics under blockade, the “Resistance Axis” pressure campaign against Saudi Arabia, and the depleted U.S. stockpiles now shaping Washington's options. The full report is free to access on GIG's website. Below is GPD's condensed version.
The June Memorandum of Understanding, meant to move past the Iran-U.S. conflict and work towards a lasting settlement, did not last a month. The tipping point came on 6-7 July, when Iran struck tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz' southern corridor, having come to see the growing volume of Gulf traffic passing outside its oversight as a violation of the interim deal's terms.
As a result, the U.S. President Donald Trump declared the deal "over", reinstating the naval blockade, stripping Iran of the oil waivers it had only just gained, and resuming strikes on the country's southern provinces meant to neuter Iranian strike capability against ships, though these hits did little to change the underlying picture. In fact, that momentary reignition of war hardened Tehran’s demands for any return to diplomacy.
Yet, the interim deal’s failure has not pushed Iran away from a deal, but rather nudged it towards a harder version of the same one, where the U.S. would be forced to unilaterally return to the MoU’s terms and agree to Iran’s central stake in the Strait of Hormuz as a means to free navigation and push the rewind button on a geographically expanding conflict.
A deal that unravelled under its own contradictions
The MoU was built on mutual distrust from the start. Iran believed Washington had signed largely to get tankers moving again and never intended to deliver the financial relief Tehran expected, while Washington saw Iran as deliberately delaying implementation while threatening maritime traffic.
The dispute exposed a deeper problem: the MoU provided rules for implementation, but contrasting interpretations and ill-defined dispute-resolution mechanisms gave either side ample room to accuse the other of violating the agreement. Once Iran attacked vessels using Oman's southern route, the agreement's implicit countermeasures became a mechanism for abandoning it rather than enforcing it.
For Tehran, the lesson has been straightforward: returning to talks without first changing the balance of leverage will simply recreate the conditions for another collapse, so Iran wants a deal that is harder for Washington to reverse.
Hormuz is more than ever the price of a durable deal
The southern shipping route exposed precisely what Iran fears most, that Gulf traffic can simply route around Iranian-controlled lanes, stripping Tehran of one of its most valuable sources of leverage since the start of the war.
