Follow our flagship MBN news sites in Arabic and English for the latest updates. If you prefer to read the Agenda in Arabic, click here. And if the MBN Agenda was forwarded to you, please subscribe.
Washington and Tehran can no longer even agree on whether they are negotiating. U.S. President Donald Trump insists he is “semi-negotiating” with Iran, and his advisers keep hinting that a Hormuz deal is imminent, but Iran denies there are formal talks at all. This week, we try to pierce that fog of diplomacy, as well as the voices shaping Trump’s Iran policy and Tehran’s scramble to rebuild its air defenses with Chinese and Russian help.
Beyond Iran, the regional order in the Middle East is shifting in quieter but more consequential ways behind the scenes. Washington is changing the terms on which Arab states prove their value. Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan announced a new defense framework. And Lebanon is discovering how quickly a U.S.-led peace process can stall when it collides with realities on the ground.
Joe Kawly, Leo Goldberg, Dalshad Hussein, Abigail George and Sakina Abdallah contributed to the MBN Agenda this week.
Washington Signals
“Semi-Negotiating” with Tehran
A U.S. flag flies at the Bürgenstock resort overlooking Lake Lucerne, Switzerland, on June 21, 2026, as U.S., Iranian, Pakistani and Qatari officials held talks aimed at ending the Middle East conflict / Nathan Howard, Pool via AFP.
Washington and Tehran are still exchanging messages. Increasingly, the messages are public, not much behind closed doors with mediators.
President Donald Trump told Axios the United States was “only semi-negotiating” with Iran and described the confrontation as “a chess game,” adding that Washington was “low-keying it.” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said a deal on the Strait of Hormuz could come within days. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said an agreement was expected “very shortly.” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi responded on X that there were no direct negotiations, only an “exchange of messages,” and that “intermediaries are still trying to create the grounds for negotiations again.” The Strait remained closed to unauthorized traffic. CENTCOM said Washington has deployed more than 20 warships to enforce the blockade and has redirected 55 commercial vessels.
A senior State Department official told MBN that an Omani channel remains active and that technical discussions have produced proposals concrete enough to include specific transit coordinates, with inbound vessels moving through Iranian waters and outbound traffic through Omani waters. “Semi-negotiation allows Washington to remain diplomatically engaged without declaring that it is sitting across from Tehran negotiating concessions,” the official said. “It allows economic and military pressure to continue while waiting to see whether Tehran’s position shifts.”
The State Department official said the sequencing was clear. “Once the deal is announced, the United States will lift the blockade. Our actions would be tied to Iran’s implementation. That is the principle that has guided this administration from day one.” Both sides have reasons to negotiate. Both have reasons not to look too eager. That is precisely the space in which “semi-negotiating” lives.
Quote of the day
We are only semi-negotiating with them. We are just watching Iran with its huge inflation and the fact they have no money.
U.S. President Donald Trump, speaking to Axios about talks with Iran.
Washington Watch
The Voices in Trump’s Orbit Shaping Iran Policy
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office as Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio look on during a meeting/AFP.
Washington’s mixed signals on Iran may at least partly reflect the competing instincts inside Trump’s inner circle of advisers. While Vice President JD Vance has pushed diplomacy and warned against deeper military entanglement, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has usually taken the harder line, backed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Mike Waltz, the U.N. ambassador.
The contrast has sharpened as talks have stalled. Vance has criticized hawks he said tried to derail the June 17 Memorandum of Understanding with Iran and reportedly advised Trump against renewed strikes, while Rubio warned Tehran that Trump’s policy was “a head for an eye” and that Iran would “pay a very heavy price” for further attacks.
But neither determines the outcome. John Calabrese of the Middle East Institute told MBN that Trump values competing advice but trusts his own instincts above those around him. Iran policy thus looks less like a doctrine than a see-saw of restraint and escalation – and one that can shift whenever Trump does.
Iran Watch
Iran Rebuilds Air Defenses with Chinese and Russian Systems
Military equipment is displayed during the National Army Day parade ceremony in Tehran, Iran, April 18, 2025. Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency/Handout via Reuters.
As the Trump administration debates whether to talk or fight, Tehran is preparing for the latter. Iranian opposition sources told MBN that Iran has received hundreds of Chinese and Russian shoulder-fired air-defense systems during the recent ceasefires, as it works to rebuild weapons stockpiles damaged during the war.
The reported shipments include Chinese QW-12 and FN-16 systems and Russian Verba missiles. They are being deployed around military sites, cities, ports and border regions, with some also transferred to Iran-aligned groups in Iraq. MBN could not independently verify the deliveries, which Tehran, Beijing and Moscow have not acknowledged.
The weapons are unlikely to erase U.S. air superiority, but they could make low-altitude operations more dangerous and give Tehran the capacity for a devastating propaganda win. “Shooting down a single American aircraft could provide Iran with a propaganda victory,” analyst Amer Al Sabaileh told MBN. “But it would not change the balance of power in Iranian airspace.”
Regional Watch
Washington Rewrites the Rules of Engagement
Billboards by the United Arab Emirates Embassy marking the signing of the US-brokered Abraham Accords are seen along the expressway in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv on September 14, 2021. Photo by JACK GUEZ/AFP.
Washington is recalibrating how it judges its Arab partners. For decades, progress toward recognizing Israel was often the price of deeper American ties. Now, the emerging model is more transactional: Investment, energy security, maritime access and state capacity increasingly matter in their own right.
The July 22 deal for the United States to provide Riyadh with nuclear power technology is the clearest example. Although Trump later said the deal was contingent on Riyadh joining the Abraham Accords, normalization was not written into the deal itself. Analyst Abdulaziz Alkhamis described the shift to MBN as moving Israel normalization “from precondition to invoice” — something Washington can demand after cooperation has already begun.
The same logic is visible in Syria and Lebanon, where U.S. policy now emphasizes counterterrorism and control over armed groups more than peace with Israel. The shift gives Arab governments more ways to prove their value to Washington, but also makes ties less predictable: Partners increasingly rise or fall according to whatever U.S. strategic goal matters most at the moment.
Regional Watch
Egypt Left Out of Mecca Defense Pact
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif pose after signing a joint defence agreement in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, August 7, 2026. Saudi Press Agency/Handout via Reuters.
Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan signed a new mutual defense pact in Mecca, pledging to treat an armed attack on any one of them as an attack on all. Notably absent was Egypt, despite taking part in months of four-nation security talks with the other three signatories over the U.S.-Iran conflict and regional instability.
Cairo has offered no public explanation, and there is no evidence it was formally invited. Egypt’s constitutional limits on foreign military deployments, preference for bilateral security arrangements, and continuing diplomatic engagement with Iran may explain its absence, analysts told MBN.
The deal nevertheless marks a significant new layer of regional deterrence, bringing together Saudi Arabia, NATO member Turkey and nuclear-armed Pakistan, as Riyadh faces threats from Iran-backed groups and instability around key shipping routes. (All three of the countries in the pact have Sunni majorities.) Turkey, meanwhile, says that the arrangement remains open to other “brotherly nations,” leaving Egypt’s future role unresolved.
Lebanon Watch
Washington Urges Patience. Beirut Needs Results
A motorcade delegation arrives for a new round of talks between the Lebanese and Israeli delegations at the US Embassy in Rome on August 4, 2026. Photo by Tiziana FABI/AFP.
Washington has spent months trying to keep the Israel-Lebanon conflict separate from the Iran war. Talks in Rome are now testing whether that firewall can hold: Israel has withdrawn from only one of three “pilot zones” in Lebanon, while Beirut is under pressure to show that the Lebanese army can effectively disarm Iran-backed Hezbollah in the areas where Israeli forces have withdrawn.
U.S. officials insist the process must remain carefully sequenced, but that leaves Lebanon carrying much of the immediate burden. Washington wants evidence that Lebanese forces are moving against Hezbollah before unlocking substantial new military support, but Beirut says it needs resources to fight the group.
Former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State David Schenker rejected the argument that Beirut simply lacks the resources to act. “This is not a question of the chicken or the egg,” he told MBN, arguing that Washington has already invested billions in Lebanon’s army and would provide more if it showed results. But if Israeli withdrawals continue to lag, the U.S. effort to wall Lebanon off from the Iran conflict could instead indefinitely extend the Israeli occupation there.
