Welcome back to the MBN Iran Briefing.
Starting today, the Monday briefings will be looking ahead at the coming week. I’ll be highlighting the major potential flashpoints and what to watch for. Thursday’s briefings will continue to look at the bigger picture and highlight developments that other outlets don’t cover.
So now to the news driving the conversation this week: Iran did not send a delegation to yesterday’s technical talks after the U.S. struck Iranian coastal sites for the second consecutive night. The IRGC retaliated by firing missiles and drones at U.S. military facilities in Kuwait and Bahrain in the early hours of Sunday morning. Meanwhile, both sides agreed to meet again in Doha on Tuesday, and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi flew to Baghdad to pitch Gulf states on a regional security framework with no role for Washington.
And don’t forget to check out the latest Iran Briefing podcast. In this edition I’m joined by Dana Stroul, director of research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and Matthew Kaminski, MBN’s editorial chair, as we take up the MOU, Iran’s nuclear and missile programs, how Iran weaponized the Strait of Hormuz, the Houthi wildcard in the post-ceasefire landscape, and what a genuine post-war strategic success looks like for Washington. Watch here or listen here.
Find out more below, and share your thoughts, analysis and predictions with me at ailves@mbn-news.com. If you were forwarded the MBN Iran Briefing, please subscribe. Read me in Arabic here, or on the flagship MBN Arabic-language and English-language news sites.
Quote of the Week
The Strait of Hormuz will return to pre-crisis conditions within 30 days under Iran’s management.
— Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Baghdad yesterday
TOP OF THE NEWS: THE WEEK AHEAD
The MOU: On Thin Ice
The question hanging over everything this week is whether tomorrow’s talks can stabilize the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), which has appeared shaky since it was signed. The two sides have agreed to halt attacks on each other and meet in Qatar on Tuesday, with the venue having shifted from Switzerland and the agenda narrowed to the Hormuz standoff specifically. A senior Trump administration official told ABC News that technical talks remain on track.
Iran did not show up at yesterday’s technical talks, with a member of the Supreme Leader’s office telling state TV that Tehran was responding to U.S. strikes and unmet MOU conditions. The foreign ministry called the attacks a clear violation of the MOU. The IRGC warned that ceasefire violations would bring a complete halt to all diplomatic processes.
Four days of tit-for-tat strikes got us here. On Wednesday, an IRGC drone hit the Ever Lovely, a Taiwanese-operated container ship sailing under a Singapore flag, as it exited the strait through the southern corridor of the Strait the U.S. Navy had cleared of Iranian mines. The U.S. struck back on Friday. On Saturday morning, Iran hit the MT Kiku, a Greek-owned, Panama-flagged crude tanker carrying more than two million barrels of Qatari oil toward Fujairah. Then the U.S. struck again, hitting Iranian surveillance sites, air defense installations, and minelayer bases in Iran’s southern coastal province of Hormozgan, on the Iranian shore of the Strait of Hormuz. In the early hours of Sunday, the IRGC fired ballistic missiles and drones at the Ali al-Salem airbase in Kuwait and the U.S. Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain.
Watch whether Iran sends a delegation to Doha on Tuesday or uses another no-show to signal that the MOU is functionally dead.
The Strait: A Legal Dispute as Well as a Military One
Both sides are striking each other, but the underlying trigger is a disagreement over which ships have the right to use which lane. Iran reads Clause 5 of the MOU as giving it sole authority over transit arrangements for the duration of the 60-day negotiating period, meaning all vessels must coordinate with Iranian authorities regardless of which side of the strait they sail on.
The IRGC statement justifying its attack on Kuwait and Bahrain cited Clause 5 and called the attacked ships “trespassing vessels.” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi reinforced that position Sunday, warning that any attempt to establish alternative shipping arrangements outside Iranian control would delay the strait’s reopening and escalate tensions further.
The U.S. and its Gulf partners reject Tehran’s reading of the clause, arguing that the southern corridor in Omani waters operates outside Iranian jurisdiction and that commercial vessels have the right to use it without Iranian clearance. The Ever Lovely and the MT Kiku were both hit while passing through the southern corridor.
The UN maritime agency halted its evacuation of stranded vessels after the strike on the Ever Lovely. With 89 U.S.-assisted commercial transits recorded through yesterday, that figure remains well below the historical daily average of 138.
Watch whether this week’s talks produce any agreed language on Clause 5, or whether the two sides leave Doha still holding incompatible readings of the same text.
Bahrain civil defense and rescue personnel work in a residential building, which, according to the Bahraini Interior Ministry, was hit by an Iranian drone yesterday. Photo: Reuters
The Rhetoric Heats Up
U.S. President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social that there may come a point where the U.S. is “forced to militarily complete the job” and that “If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist!” His message followed a post on X by Vice President JD Vance that if Tehran has “disagreements about how the MOU is being applied, they can pick up the phone. But violence will be met with violence.”
The president’s Truth Social post and the vice president’s X post together point to something worth watching this week: whether the administration is drawing a public red line around the southern corridor specifically, or whether the language is designed to strengthen the U.S. hand going into Doha on Tuesday. Neither post named a specific Iranian action that would cross into full military response. If the IRGC strikes another vessel in the southern corridor before or after the talks, the posts certainly suggest strong U.S. action will ensue.
Watch whether the administration backs the Truth Social and X posts with a specific named red line before the Doha meeting, or stays deliberately ambiguous going in.
The Gulf: Kuwait, Bahrain and the Challenge for Qatar
Yesterday’s IRGC strikes on Kuwait and Bahrain are the first time Iran has struck Gulf states since the MOU was signed. Qatar condemned them and stressed the need to spare the region from unjustified attacks. Its interior ministry then confirmed that a Qatari citizen on a coastguard vessel was killed by shrapnel from military operations in the area, without specifying whose operations they had been.
Kuwait called the strikes a flagrant violation of its sovereignty. Bahrain reported that a residential building was heavily damaged and called for an emergency UN Security Council session. Neither government has a mediation role, but both host U.S. military infrastructure.
Watch whether Doha’s willingness and political capacity to keep both sides at the table survive the stresses it is under, and whether either Kuwait or Bahrain moves this week to expel Iranian diplomats, request an emergency GCC session, or seek a UN Security Council response.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein shaking hands with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi yesterday in Baghdad. Photo: Reuters
Araghchi in Baghdad
Hours after the IRGC struck Kuwait and Bahrain yesterday, Araghchi flew to Baghdad on an official visit covering bilateral relations as well as the logistics of the late supreme leader Ali Khamenei’s funeral procession through Iraq’s Shia holy cities, a ceremony still pending nearly four months after the supreme leader was killed in the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Tehran at the outset of the war.
He also used the trip to pitch Gulf states on a regional security framework with no role for Washington. At a joint press conference with Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein, he called for a new arrangement covering the Gulf “without the presence or interference of extra-regional powers,” and welcomed Iraq’s proposal to host an eight-party GCC-Iran-Iraq summit.
Araghchi also told reporters the Strait of Hormuz would be returned to full Iranian administration within 30 days once remaining obstacles are cleared, and warned that the U.S.-backed southern corridor through Omani waters, which bypasses Iranian control, is illegitimate under the MOU in Tehran’s view. He threatened that “Any attempt to interfere in Iran’s management of the Strait of Hormuz … will only complicate the situation and delay the reopening of the Strait.”
Watch whether any Gulf state responds to Araghchi’s regional security framework pitch, and whether Iraq follows through on the eight-party summit proposal before the 60-day MOU clock runs out.
ESSENTIAL READING
“The Middle East Power Paradox: How the Iran War Will Transform America’s Military Role.” Dana Stroul, Foreign Affairs, July/August 2026. This article by this week’s MBN Iran Briefing podcast guest argues that Epic Fury demonstrated unmatched U.S. military power at too high a cost and delivering too little strategic gain. Washington must now overhaul how it partners in the region before the next crisis.
“What the U.S.-Iran Deal Means for the Rest of the Middle East (and Beyond).” Atlantic Council, June 2026. Atlantic Council experts assess the MOU’s implications for Gulf states, Israel, Pakistan, and the broader region. Essential context for what’s at stake in Doha this week.
The Strait of Hormuz, Shipping, and Law. Chatham House, April 2026. A concise legal analysis of the transit passage dispute at the core of the Clause 5 standoff, including why Iran’s non-ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) matters and what UN Security Council Resolution 2817 actually says about Gulf states’ legal status.
Strait of Hormuz Crisis. Lloyd’s List, updated through June 2026. The definitive industry tracker on transit volumes and routing corridors.
