On: What's in the US-Iran agreement?

June 18, 2026.

It is a most agreeable development to learn that fourteen paragraphs have at last resolved what decades of diplomacy could not. The arithmetic of peace is so elegantly simple: one memorandum, two signatures, three hundred billion dollars, and an infinity of good intentions. I confess I admire the precision with which the matter has been settled - the fighting shall cease, the weapons shall not be made, and the money shall flow. It is a triumph of administrative clarity.

One might object that such arrangements have, in the past, proven less durable than the parchment on which they are written. But this is to misunderstand the nature of modern statecraft. The beauty of the agreement lies not in its enforcement, but in its existence. The very act of signing such a document demonstrates a commitment to peace so profound that it need not be troubled by the vulgar details of compliance. After all, what is three hundred billion dollars between friends who have, until yesterday, been aiming missiles at one another? It is a small price to pay for the appearance of concord.

I have no doubt that this memorandum will be regarded by future historians as a model of rational statecraft. It solves everything, and requires nothing but the occasional renewal of good faith - which, I am told, is infinitely renewable.